


Flawed Existence

by beekeepercain



Series: Mockumentary!verse [2]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Abuse, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Child Abuse, Consensual Sex, Dirty Talk, Filming, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Injury, M/M, Manipulation, Oral Sex, Roleplay, Sexual Abuse, Underage Rape/Non-con, Victim Blaming, mockumentary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-06-05 07:13:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6694714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Together they form the Ouroboros, a great snake eating its own tail. Jensen is the end, unable to escape the grip of its own maws, and Jared is the head, unable to stop biting down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flawed Existence

**Author's Note:**

> None of this will make any sense unless you've read [**Bonding Exercise**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5333885/chapters/12315797). So, please, read Bonding Exercise first.
> 
> But okay, look, _look_ , I'm hooked on this verse. I have such a grand network of headcanons and plans for this verse that I could build a literal metropolis out of it all. It's taken me such a long time to push out a continuation to it _solely_ because I'm so addicted to planning it through and perfecting the way I'm presenting it. Fuck. I love Mockuverse. It'll be my end. Help me.
> 
> This fic will probably end up having multiple chapters. I mean, this is just me dropping some breadcrumbs here. They just might come at a slower pace. Maybe.
> 
> I love this verse _so much._

 

* * *

 

 

Together, they form the Ouroboros, a great snake eating its own tail. Jensen is the end, unable to escape the grip of its own maws, and Jared is the head, unable to stop biting down. They make love like that, too - it's an endless cycle of hate turning to something else, that something else boiling back down to hate. Over and over and over again. It begins like a dance, with steps that have to be followed carefully. Jared will seek Jensen out. Jensen will let him in, full well knowing he shouldn't, fearing that he doesn't want to, but yet driven by some strange compulsion to fulfill his role regardless. Jared will corner him until he has no way out. He'll hold him down, push him against a wall, force him on his back on the bed. He'll strip him down while Jensen has the choice between two extremes: he can fight, or he can lie very still instead. The result is the same. He'll be naked, and Jared will take him in his mouth, suck him until he's hard, or he'll spread his legs and circle his hole with his tongue, its tip sliding in every now and then taking Jensen's breath away. He's good with his mouth, and Jensen has grown to expect that. He's learned to daydream about it, his fist running up and down his length when Jared vanishes for days or weeks at a time, leaving him half-scared, half-impatient for the next time he'll knock on his door or wait beside it after filming ends. Then Jared will take him, and sometimes he's gentle like he was on the first time around. Sometimes he takes his time, treating Jensen's body like it's worthy of his attention, of some respect. And sometimes he'll fuck him like he's an object, not a human being, and Jensen will close his eyes and imagine himself somewhere else, as someone else. Then they'll part. Jared never stays - Jensen never asks him to.

The year turns, the snow melts, and beneath it, the world reveals itself in the colours of the rainbow. Small wild flowers pop up from the mud while carefully cultivated bouquets make their way everywhere, produced by greenhouses and distributed around the world by flower shops. Jensen finds himself less interested in all of this than he's ever been before. The summer will come and end regardless of how he greets it, and then it'll be winter again. All of this will die as quickly as it comes. Inside his trailer, his cleanses and meditation do nothing to make him feel pure again. He closes the curtains and sleeps his way through most of it, only waking up to perform his two roles: the one he plays for the cameras, and the other he plays for Jared.

The theory of it all is very simple and easy to follow. The practice is its opposite. It's yin yang, but Jensen's stuck in the yin, unbalanced. It defines his life - passive, dark, negative - and it flows into nothing. He breathes through his nose, eyes closed, and fills his lungs with air, but even he can't feel his energy anymore. It isn't there. He's hollow inside.

It has to end.

 

* * *

 

Jared's grown prettier over the course of the winter. It's unfair and unnecessary. He's firmer, his skin is better, his posture has changed. And he's meaner than ever, as if his bad temper was the ember glowing within him. Jensen presses against the wall and becomes invisible. He's very good at it.

"You think acting is easy, huh? That an actor can just pull through the role like it's nothing while being stared at like an animal in a fucking exhibition? How do you think I can be Sam with someone's fucking eyes glued to the fucking window? You think Sam's being stared at when he has this moment with his brother? Is that what you think? Some idiot's face just pressing against the fucking motel room window like it's nothing. Just _staring_. What a fucking moron."

The assistant cowers. It's his first day at work and he's already committed a cardinal sin. Jared took hours to prepare. Jensen stayed out of his way - so did everyone else. And now this, a pair of eyes a little too keenly upon the scene, doing exactly what they're meant to do: observe and learn.

"Well, Sam's _gone_. I worked like hell over this scene and this fucker just shits all over that effort."

"Jared, listen -"

Jensen turns a little more invisible against the wall when the man speaks. He's part of it, part of the wall. He can feel his back merging with it, liquifying, then turning to plaster one cell at a time. He's like a chameleon. The wall isn't real.

" _Who?_ Who the _fuck_ are you addressing? How many times do I have to - _fuck_ , I can't work like this."

"I'm sorry - Jesus - look, we have to wrap this scene today, it's -"

"Well, maybe you should punish the person responsible for ruining it!"

Jensen closes his eyes. The assistant leaves. He'll never come back. He might never come back to any studio whatsoever. Jared has that power. He's molded it for himself like God molded men from clay and women from the man's ribs. He's omnipotent here; his word is everything.

"Sam," Jensen calls, his voice hollow and his eyes opening just as blankly, "look at me."

Jared's head turns. He falls quiet, eyes upon Jensen. He examines him for a while and Jensen forces a smile for him. _Take it out on me,_ he says without words, _finish the scene and I'll give you anything._ The offer stands for a while, and so does the air in the studio. No one moves. The crew watches their fingers, their shoes or their seats, and the cameraman adjusts his equipment as if it hadn't been throughoutly tested before. Then, finally, Sam returns. He slips into Jared's posture and softens his edges, brings a mask of humanity back over the man's face. Dean inside Jensen aches for his brother - Jensen inside Dean wants to melt into him and cease existing before the sun sets.

"Fine."

The director lets out an inaudible sigh of relief. He'll get off work today knowing they did what they had set to do despite the catastrophe that had briefly loomed upon them, but without knowing the price Jensen's paid for it. No one knows that. No one's seen the bruises yet. But he's not more than the crew - he'll shoulder it for them if it means they get to go home on time tonight. To their families. Jensen doesn't have much to return to. Just his candles, each representing a different violation, and his empty cupboards.

"And... action!"

 

* * *

 

The sun dives through the horizon blazing in all of its glory. Its rays paint the undersides of the heavy clouds red and purple and orange like semi-solid flames stuck on a canvas. Jensen looks at them as he walks to his trailer, feels the wind in his hair. He feels oddly physical, aware of his body and the way that it exists, the way it moves, the way he's breathing, but it's not the meditative awareness that he used to look for in his exercises. Instead, it's like his consciousness has formed a fist that grips him tight, crushing him within its hold. His steps keep leading him towards the end even though he can already see Jared standing by his trailer and wants nothing more than to turn away and run. It's funny how he always feels the same, yet he's never tried to do it, not once. The thought terrifies him and excites him at once. Jared's a fast runner. Would he catch up with him before he'd crossed the Canadian border? He could run all the way up to the Rockies and disappear.

"Good scene today," Jared tells him when he stands in front of him.  
The sun paints him with its fire, too. Turns the hazel in his eyes to a blaze.  
"I could really feel Sam on that last take."

Jensen nods. He digs out his keys and pushes them into the lock. His mind flashes with shots from the dance. He'll step in. Jared will follow him. He'll push him against the couch and kiss him until his lips bruise.

One step up. Two steps up. Inside. Jensen leaves his shoes by the door. Jared follows him. One step up. He doesn't need more than that. He leaves his shoes by the door and his fingers slide over Jensen's arm. The fire still burns inside his eyes even though the sun has been locked outside, a golden spark playing about the black hollow of his pupils.

"I can _still_ really feel Sam with me, actually."

Jensen shivers.  
"Yeah? You wanna go over lines?" he asks, petrified.

Jared's grip of him tightens. He pulls him closer, places a soft kiss over his lips.  
"No. I want to play."

He releases Jensen and Jensen dances around the couch, puts a safe distance between them.  
"Yeah?" he repeats.

"Be Dean for me."

"I can't -"

"You can," Jared tells him, seats himself upon the back of the couch. Takes away the safe space like it's nothing to him.

But Jensen can't. Dean's his last haven in this shitstorm as much as Sam is Jared's. Dean is his everything, the only skin in the world that Jared hasn't violated yet. But of course it was just a matter of time before he got there, too. Is it worth the fight? Worth whatever the fight might cost him?

"No."  
The word is solid, much more solid than Jensen feels. His energy has moved outside of his skin and his lungs are breathing alien air, exposed.  
"I can't."

Jared lifts his brows.  
"Really?" he asks, and he sounds threatening.  
The tiger boy's about the pounce.

Jensen looks at him and his eyes burn, but he can't blink.  
"Really."

The couch squeaks like a mouse when Jared slips over it, steps on Jensen's side. He brings his palms over Jensen's hips and pulls him closer.  
"You might want to reconsider that, Jen."

Jensen smiles.

"No?" Jared asks, trails a finger over his cheek.

Jensen keeps smiling, but he's already closing his eyes.  
His back hits the wall with such a force that the trailer shakes and his lungs empty in a choked cough. The moment it happens, he opens his eyes and looks directly at Jared, his fists suddenly gripping his, nails digging  
into the other's soft skin. He's grimacing, lips curling like a wolf's.  
"Get off me," he snarls.

Jared presses him against the wall tighter - thinks he's got this. But Jensen's angry. The hollow inside him is flooding with heat and it's charging into his body, over his cheeks, into the tips of his ears.

"I said," he repeats, "Get. Off. Me."

He'll die tonight, and it doesn't even matter. His nails still embedded inside Jared's skin, he twists his wrists until the man's hold breaks, and he pushes him with his whole weight, catches him by surprise. Jared stumbles: his calves dig into the low table behind them and he falls over it, crashing heavily between it and the couch. He looks shocked at first. Then he looks in pain. There's blood on the trailer floor and over his shirt. Jensen doesn't know where it's coming from.

Their eyes meet. Jensen expects an attack - another pounce, anything. But Jared just sits there, bleeding, arms over the couch and one leg over the table, the candles thrown around, one still rolling on the floor. And he raises his brows again, and this time, the expression seems genuine.

"Huh," he says in a voice that breaks a little, "Didn't know you had that in you."

The fight disappears from Jensen. All he can see now is the blood. Its coppery smell penetrates his nostrils, heavy and real.

"Fuck," he utters, and just like that he's on his knees, crawling closer to the man he just threw away from him, "You're - I didn't mean to - shit, I'm sorry, Jared, I -"

Jared shakes his head.  
"Doesn't matter," he scoffs and tries to move.  
The twist of his body ends with a rough whimper.  
" _Fuck_ ," he breathes out and falls back in place.

A small sense of panic returns within Jensen.  
"Where's the blood coming from?" he asks numbly, reaching his hand onto Jared's shirt and pulling it up from the place it's soaked with warm, still flowing blood, "Shit - I didn't - I just meant to push you away, I didn't..."

To his surprise, Jared lets out a little laugh. He leans back onto the couch and lets his head down, his hair flowing off of his shoulders like silk.  
"Remember that jar you had a candle in? On the table?" he growls, eyes closed.

Jensen chokes on his spit.

"My educated guess is that it's embedded in my back now. Or a big part of it is, anyway."

He hisses and Jensen notices tears in his eyes. Real tears - from pain, he realises.

"Let me look," he utters in a scared, quiet voice, hand already pushing Jared around.

The younger man lets him do so, bending the way he's guiding him with as little resistance as the wound allows him. He's half right, but not entirely so: there's nothing embedded in him. The glass has shattered and it's spread underneath him on the floor, but the only thing he has on him is an open gash with nothing sticking out of it. Without thinking, Jensen pulls off his shirt and presses it against the wound.  
"Hold that," he says, his voice seemingly coming from somewhere far away from him, "I'm gonna - call a doctor."

It's true, he realises when he reaches for his phone, his own hand still over his shirt when Jared's hand moves there and presses over his. He will die tonight. Just not in the way he thought.

Assault on his co-star? He's not going to survive that. The only irony in the situation is that he's far from the one who should be fired on those premises. But what could he claim self-defense to, when he's always been the one opening the door? Nobody forced him to do so. Nobody forced him to let Jared in. Nobody, except Jared himself. Jensen wouldn't know how to explain it.

"Hey, um, there's been - Jared's bleeding pretty badly in my trailer, we need a doctor here, pronto."

The words to end a career with.

 

* * *

 

Jared sits on the couch like he owns it. He's smiling that dimpled, bright smile he's so good at when the doctor stitches him closed. If he cries out, it sounds like laughter.  
"It's alright," he says, turning his cold eyes towards Jensen, "We got a little rough and I fell. That's all."

"The hell were you doing?"

"Practicing. We were practicing the fight scene next week. Dean's fighting those three vamps, one of them launches at him and Dean pushes him off. Jensen just miscalculated his strength and the available space, nothing worse than that. We've all done it."

He examines Jensen's expression as he speaks, the smile never fading even when pain twists it. Jensen just stares. He doesn't know what else to do now that the glass is cleaned off the floor and he has no purpose in this setting anymore. The scene goes on. Jared's flesh is sewed back together, the blood disappears and a white patch appears in place of it. The doctor walks out, Clif stays; he exchanges a few words with Jared, asks if Jensen needs anything. Jensen shakes his head, and he, too, leaves. The door closes, locking them in the trailer together again like nothing ever happened.

"Gonna need a new shirt," Jared finally says, stretching his bloody v-neck with a grimace on his face, "Could you borrow me one?"

He looks innocent when he looks up at Jensen again, pleading. The expression sends a cold shiver through Jensen's spine.

"Y-yeah."  
Jensen takes a step back.  
"Sure."

He picks one that is just a little too large for him - a fan gift, well-worn despite its size. It fits Jared perfectly when the man pulls it over his muscular frame, and he looks happy with it, satisfied. Then he looks at Jensen again, and the puppy dog expression returns as out of place as ever. He should be fuming. Jensen's head should be bloody against the wall by now. Instead, he smiles a little, almost shyly, and leans forwards in the couch to make himself appear smaller.

"Would you play Dean for me _now?_ " he asks, his smile turning sweeter, "You owe it to me for that. I saved your ass just now. It's the least you can do, really."

Jensen swallows. He closes his eyes and wants to cry. Then, suddenly numb, he looks at Jared's general direction and nods stiffly.

"Good."

Jared closes his eyes and breathes. Sam spreads into his limbs, into his expression and his posture again, changing him before Jensen's eyes. It takes Jensen a moment to realise that he made a promise, and Jared will pick up on it instantly if he doesn't follow suit, so he tries his best to conjure up some frail version of Dean, a mask to cover his shaken self from sight. It's not good enough and he knows it, but maybe Jared will accept it for now.

When Jared opens his eyes next, Jensen doesn't see him in them, not really. He knows Sam just as well as Jared knows Dean. This is Sam.

Sam's expression shifts a little, and he brings his hand over his wound. He looks away, stays still for a moment and then closes his eyes, looking submissive, pained; Jensen wonders if that's the way Jared really feels, but he's not entirely convinced that Jared feels pain like normal people do. After all, it's only been months since he confessed to him that he doesn't feel much of anything at all. Just anger. Boredom.

"Don't be a baby, Sammy."  
Jensen's voice isn't as steady as he'd like, but he's getting there.  
"'s just a cut."

Sam scoffs.  
"Yeah. Talk when it's you thrown through a window."

He's easier to approach. Sam is. Jensen's body budges forwards and he sits on the arm rest of his couch.  
"You, uh, want something to go with that? We're all out of brewskies, but..."

"No, I'm good. Really."  
Sam looks at him examiningly for a moment before shifting.  
"Could use some help patching up the rest of me, though."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. When I fell through the frame, my legs took a beating, heh. If you have bandages around, we could - I don't know. I have a hard time bending down with this cut."

Jensen nods slowly.  
"Anything," he promises, and with Sam, he means it.  
His heart beats a little faster every time he's with Sam. It's Dean, really; Dean loves this kid. Loves every inch of him, every stupid look he gives, everything.  
"I'll take a look at what we've got."

They've got a lot. He's got the first-aid kit with a tower of bandages stuck to the bathroom wall, and he opens it and picks out a couple unopened ones. The rest he's used after jogging to help his muscles relax; he's not sure if Jared would be alright with those. If he'd want authenticity - worn, torn bandages instead of pure white sterile ones, but he's not gambling it. The Winchesters have to buy new ones _sometimes_ , after all. Trusting that is safer than trusting Jared to be alright with anything but the best.  
He returns like Dean would, not too slow and not too fast. Concerned, but concealing it.

Sam pulls up his pantleg and Jensen feels cold at the sight of the dark bruises lining up in the image of his table's side. He kneels in front of him, grabs a hold of his leg and moves it up, places it on the table.

"Jesus, Sam."

Sam chuckles.  
"Yeah, tell me about it."

Carefully, Jensen begins wrapping the bruise out of sight. He tries not to think - tries pretend that this is just another scene, another practice. Whatever to make the reality disappear. Whatever to make the future disappear, more than anything. He can't handle what's coming as inevitably as it always does. He's not ready to sacrifice Dean, but he's got no other choice.

Sam's fingers reach for his arm and trail over it, then disappear.  
"Feels good," he mutters, leans back in the couch again, rests his head on the back and lets out a small relieved sigh, "Sorry I can't - it just... hurts to bend down."

"I know, Sam. We're even. It's - my fault you got in this, anyway."

Slowly, Sam shakes his head.  
"Should have been more careful," he says quietly, gently, to absolve Dean of the responsibility, "Next time, I'll..."

The words fade out when Dean uncovers his other leg. Carefully, Sam lowers the foot of his bandaged leg back on the floor and Dean pulls the other onto the table.

"Dean?"

"Mm?"

"You did good."

Jensen's head jerks up. Dean's should have stayed down. Luckily, Jared isn't watching: Sam's got his eyes closed.

"Yeah?" Jensen asks, surprised.

"Mm. Didn't think you had it in you, really. For a moment there it looked like - you were just frozen. But you got out of it. You fought back. You did good."

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he keeps wrapping Sam's leg up. This is a trap. It has to be - there's no other explanation. It's a 180 from Jared; understanding. Accepting.

 _'_ _The only thing that's worth it is playing Sam; pretending I feel, pretending I'm human, because unlike me, Sam is. He's the only person who - who lets me - who makes me feel_ _.'_

For a while, Jensen watches Jared and wonders if he's playing out the scenario in the way he thinks it should go. If this is what he thinks a real human being would do: acknowledge that he was scared and build him up for fighting back despite that. Forgive the pain he caused Jared to protect himself. Or is it just a way for him to feel better about himself - to turn the situation around so that _he_ gets to be the victim, the one being cared for?

Finally, he sticks the end of the bandage inside the wraps and pulls the legs of Jared's jeans down over the covered injuries on both sides, lifts himself off the floor and sits back on the arm rest. Sam opens an eye to peer at him.

"You said no beer, but I'm thirsty."

"There's, uh."  
Jensen blushes. He can't stop Dean from blushing, too, but Dean would never have freshly made, organic apple juice in his fridge.  
"There's juice."

"Good enough," Sam chuckles, "The hell's that from, anyway?"

Jensen's already on his way, like a good little slave. Dean would do that for his brother. Perhaps not quite this obediently, but he would; if Sam's legs looked like that, he'd do anything for him.

"Uh, a witness. Wanted to thank me for being a good listener. With juice. I didn't ask, really, I just wanted to get out. Her whole house stank of cat."

Sam laughs.  
"Alright. I'll stop asking."  
He accepts the glass and drinks half of it in one go. Then he turns back to Dean, a small smile on him.  
  
"Thanks."

"No problem."

 

* * *

 

He's never been with Jared like this. Never so freely, without having to second-guess everything he does. They watch TV together, Jensen finally sliding down from the arm rest onto the couch, each with a cold glass of apple juice in hand. It gets distractingly easy to forget himself in it - forget the mess he made for himself, forget the fear, forget the pain, forget everything - and let Dean take over instead. And Dean does. He smiles with Sam, laughs with him, pokes fun at him like it's the most normal thing to do. Instead of getting angry, Sam takes it, returns it. As if he was really a completely different person inside Jared's skin.

Then, just when Jensen's truly gotten lost in the illusion, Sam turns the TV off and the trailer's only source of light disappears.

"Cut," Jared's voice calls through the dispersing darkness.

Jensen swallows tensely. Suddenly, he's all too aware of the other's form beside him, and the vulnerability of his own skin, the frame of his bones inside his flesh, all of it there to be broken at will. He looks away, waits.

Nothing happens.

"I really didn't think you had it in you. The fight," Jared notes after such a long while that Jensen's eyes are already adjusted to the dim lights shining through the trailer's windows.

"You can't do that to me. You can't keep doing it to me, Jared."

"Doing what?"

"Coming here. Hurting me. It needs to end."  
Jensen shifts and forces himself to look over at Jared.  
"It ends now," he emphasizes, "It ends here."

Jared goes quiet again. He looks out the window and shifts his legs in a manner that communicates ache to Jensen, and he wonders if it's a trick to remind him of what he did, or just something Jared did to easen the pain for himself. It's impossible to tell, and he doesn't move again to give Jensen a second chance to read him.

"Or what?" he finally asks, turning his eyes back towards Jensen.  
He's serious - and his voice is not threatening.

"Or this ends."

"This?"

"This. All of this. You coming here."  
Somehow, speaking becomes easier for Jensen the longer he goes on with it. He feels braver, too, and instead of shifting away, he turns to face Jared with his entire body, crossing one leg on the couch between them.  
"You'll never hurt me again. You won't push me. You won't force me. You won't threaten me. You won't manipulate me. You do any of that, you do any of it just _once_ more, and I won't open that door for you ever again. You lift one finger against me and I'll never open my legs for you again. You keep doing what you do and I will report you to the police and I will take the shit that comes with it, all of it, to make sure you'll never hurt anyone again. Not me, not anyone, Jared. Not anyone."

Jared looks taken aback for a moment. Then he lets out a chuckle.  
"Wow."

"I'm fucking serious, Jared."

"No, I just - I know. I get it. I can hear you. It's just that - you're leaving this open like you're hoping that I'll change from this. That just because you tell me to, I'll start behaving the way you want me to behave. Just because you _say_ I should do that. And that's really, really fucking thick coming from someone who's telling _me_ not to threaten people. You're not saying 'this ends here, period'. You're just saying 'do this, or else'. Isn't that hypocritical?"

"Don't turn this around, Jared."

"You're the one turning this around. You want control, right? So you start taking it. Like it belongs to you, not me."

"That's not what I'm -"

"Look, Jensen. I had fun tonight. Thanks for that. But you don't get to tell me I don't get to do something when you're actually the pot shaming the kettle here, Jensen. I may have bruised you a little when we've played before. I probably left some hickeys. You, on the other hand, threw me over a _fucking table_ and I needed fucking _stitches_ to recover from that. You ever needed stitches after what I do to you?"

Jensen swallows. He's angry again, and it's scorching his tear ducts and it's crushing his chest and his throat, but he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't have anything to hold up against Jared. If he'd never done what he did tonight - if he'd never gone that far - Jared wouldn't have anything to use against him. Now he's given him everything. An excuse. A _reason._

"That's not fair," he hisses, choked, "That's not fucking fair. You _know_ it isn't. You know it isn't fucking fair and still you - you keep doing it. It's like you don't... like you don't have -"

"A heart?" Jared fills the sentence for him, "A soul? I thought I told you about that already - I don't. So if you're looking for that, I'm sorry to disappoint. But not really. Because I don't know what that fucking _means_."

Jensen swallows hard, trying to hold back from reaching out and wrapping his hands around Jared's throat and strangling him to once and for all get free from this vicious cycle.

"Then how do you do it?" he asks instead, his voice still barely more than a growl, "How the fuck do you turn into Sam?"

Jared seems to think for a moment. Then he shrugs.  
"I guess," he starts slowly, "Sam is something that died in me a long fucking time ago. The reanimated corpse of what I could have been as a person."  
He turns to watch Jensen's reaction with a calculating expression on his face.  
"You wanna fuck?" he asks then, out of the blue as if it wasn't the most inappropriate question he could have possibly reached for.

"What?" Jensen spits out, now instinctively backing away from Jared, "No. _Fuck_ no. Don't start fucking derailing this now. Jared, what the fuck happened to you? Do people just come out of the womb screwed up for life like you? Because if that's true, then I'm scared for your kids."

An odd, hollow expression flashes over Jared's features. He covers it quickly, returning to a blank nothing, the face that Jensen's slowly learned to associate with him the best.

"Maybe you should be," he says, his voice soft and calm despite the rage that Jensen can hear boiling just beneath the surface.

Jensen shudders. The sensation rises from his core and surfaces so fast it's visible and he knows he looks ridiculous, and that seeing him that uncomfortable is exactly the reward that Jared was looking for. Despite it, he stands up.  
"Get out," he utters, stepping back to make way for the other, "Get the fuck out and don't come back."

To his surprise, Jared stands up and doesn't come for him. His hands don't wrap around Jensen's arms, his weight doesn't push him back against the wall, and his teeth don't crash with the sore flesh of his neck. Instead, the taller walks around the couch to the door, puts on his shoes and leaves the trailer.

The lock turns after him, sheltering Jensen in the darkness. Legs weak, he stumbles to the kitchen space and flicks on the soft, warm yellow light in there.

And he breathes.

Just breathes.

 


	2. Breaking Bones

* * *

 

The next morning dawns without Jared. Jensen goes on with his morning routine: he showers, shaves, brushes his teeth and drinks a blended juice with apples and kale and cucumber. For the first time in a while, he takes a jog, running for a good forty minutes before returning, legs aching pleasantly as he hops back in the shower to get the sweat off before changing clothes into his day gear. _Dean_ gear. He walks into the make-up trailer, afraid that he'll find Jared there, but it's empty excluding the staff, ready to get him prepared for his scene.

He films for two hours before asking.

"Where's, um. Where's Jared?"

"Flew home this morning. Don't know why he decided to, but since it's all you for this week, it doesn't really matter. Maybe he just missed his wife and kids, who the hell knows."

Jared never misses anyone, but Jensen takes the answer and runs with it. Suddenly, the set is his. The studios are his. The city of Vancouver, the whole country is his, and most importantly: his own trailer is _his_ again.

He takes another jog after filming. He brings his yoga mat out of the trailer and does his exercise in the late sunlight to feel its warmth upon his skin and the gentle breezes of evening air moving past him as he meditates. He lets the buzzing of the studio fill his ears when he meditates - the passing cars, the leaving cars, the shouts of the crews, the crashes and the bangs as people build, tear down or pack up. At times, someone familiar comes to him and talks to him, and for the first time in weeks, he doesn't have to try and shake them off to hole up in his trailer. He doesn't have to do anything. He can just talk with them, laugh with them, feel that precious connection with other human beings that he's almost forgotten in his isolation, and suddenly it's easy to remember why he's here. This is the job that he loves, and these are the people he calls friends, _family_. It's not perfect: he still has the role of Jensen Ackles to play for them, but it's easier than living in fear.

The week passes quickly, but not unnoticed. Jensen burns through each day like it was the last, works hard, takes those trips to Vancouver to eat out with his coworkers whenever he's asked to, and somehow he feels like maybe they like him a little better now that he's been ruffled up and beaten down and it all has hardened him up from the soft creature he's always been. Maybe he's a little bit closer to the Dean they love and have always loved more than they've ever loved Jensen. In the end, it doesn't matter: what they give him is affection and togetherness. He soaks it up like a sponge and envelops himself in it, lets it become everything for him day to day as if in the hopes that some of that will stick to him, protect him in the months to come. It begins in the morning, with the idle chats he has with his assistants and the make-up crew. It ends when he packs up his gear from the parking lot and moves back in his trailer, or climbs down from its roof where he's been watching the great depths of the sky and the passing of clouds to remind him that the world is here and now and his energy, that spark that still echoes the universe, is still there within him. Fear hasn't destroyed it yet, even if it's suffered and dimmed from it. It is _there_ , right inside him, and now he can suddenly feel it again.

All until the next scene he plays with Jared.

The man returns on a late flight the evening before: Jensen watches him arrive, but Jared doesn't look up, although Jensen doubts it's because he hasn't noticed him - he doesn't camouflage all too well on the roof of the trailer next to Jared's. The other man disappears inside, never lifts a curtain, and stays in until the next morning. He takes up space in the make-up trailer, so Jensen comes in early and leaves briefly after he's arrived. The set becomes Jared's again. The crew's attentiont switches from Jensen back to him, the only one who really matters.

And it's almost as if Jared's return clouds not only Jensen's mind but the sun itself as well, as a rainy spell falls over Vancouver from the very first morning he's back. It washes through the blooming spring flowers and chills the air of approaching summer, nothing like the scorch of Texan afternoons this time of the year. Jensen gives up his space on the green grasses at meal times and seats himself with the rest of the crew at the row of tables set up for them in the shelter of the lunch tent. Wind crashes through the tent's doors and bites into the bone like the winter has returned with a vengeance.

"Oh, I almost forgot," a man speaks happily at the end of the day, "I left your fanmail under your trailer."

Jensen glances at him and flashes a smile.

"You know what's weird, though?"

He doesn't know. Instead of answering, he glances around for Jared next, but the man has disappeared again. He's good at it, and even better at resurfacing in unexpected places, forcing Jensen to alter his route around the set. Finally, he turns back and raises his brows.

"Jared took his. He's never done that, has he? Not since - years ago, anyway."

"Yeah."  
Jensen barely hears what he's told.  
"Thanks for bringing it."

"No problem."

Every step towards his trailer is a heavy one. It shouldn't be that way - Jensen knows the enemy, and his enemy is no more a monster than he is. Not only that, but he bleeds blood like any other man; the stitches in his back are probably still the only thing holding his cut together. The memory chills Jensen more than the curtain of rain pouring through his hair and down the collar of his shirt. They haven't spoken after the fight, unless Sam addressing Dean counts, and to Jensen, it doesn't. He knows the difference like day and night, now better than ever; Jared is nowhere to be found when he takes on Sam, and he likes nothing better than to lurk inside his role undisturbed. As long as nothing breaks him out of it, he's restful and tranquil like a sunbathing lion, his vicious temper lost inside that other persona.

Pools of water form under Jensen's steps. He stops, raises his face towards the clouded sky and closes his eyes, arms lifting from his sides to greet the rain. It washes over him to greet him in return, its each drop forming small streams over his warm, glowing skin. He feels the water tickle and bite him with cold under his shirt and he smiles softly at sky, feeling more alive now, as if spring had finally reached him and brought him alive after a long, cold and hard winter.

He's ready to face whatever prowls his trailer tonight.

 

* * *

 

Jared leans onto the trailer's side, arms crossed, green-and-gold eyes measuring the rainy weather. He's sheltering underneath the canopy, looking as if not even the rain dares to touch him. Aside from a few drops over the shoulders of his flannel, or _Sam's_ flannel, he's dry. It takes him a moment to see Jensen coming and to Jensen's surprise, his lips bend into a grin.

"Took a dip in the harbour?"

Jensen shakes his head.  
"I told you not to come back," he says instead, anxiety gripping his chest but with his voice steady and casual, daring to sound almost bored.

Jared shrugs.  
"I left, didn't I? I left the whole fucking country. Thought that'd be far enough to give you some space."

Jensen scoffs.

"Look, I know the last one left a shitty taste in your mouth. And I'm not here to beg you to let me in."

"Yeah? What, then?"  
He's reached the canopy, and they stand a few steps away from each other. Jared's grin has toned down to a smile.

"I'm here to ask if you'd have coffees in mine."

"Coffee's -"

"I got decaf for you," Jared cuts him off and shrugs, "It's not bad. C'mon. I cleaned up just for you."

Jensen ignores him.  
"And why the hell would I come into your trailer?"

His cold voice seems to have no effect on Jared whatsoever - he seems to have prepared for this, and Jensen's attitude isn't setting him off. Yet.  
  
"I thought we could open our fanmail together. You got yours today, right?"

Slowly, Jensen nods.  
"I did."

"So?" Jared says, the smile on him a little patronizing, "You gonna join me or what? Just coffees, Jensen. No sex."

That takes Jensen by surprise. He throws a look around, scared that someone may have overheard them, but the only person he can see is a blurry figure rushing through the rain holding a folder over his head, and he's much too far to be overhearing anything they say. He turns back with a lifted brow and a suspicious look on his face.

"That'd be a first," he states sharply.

Jared shrugs.  
"Think I didn't get enough back home? I'm married, you know."

Another first there. Jared's never referenced his marriage in the context of what is going on between them, and Jensen's always thought it a taboo subject; something he'd rather avoid remembering, much less directly addressing, whenever they're together.

"C'mon. I'll even put a time limit. You'll get out before nine. That makes a total of three hours for us, and there's plenty of mail, right?"

He's chipping away at Jensen's resolution, and Jensen shifts his weight from foot to foot for a while before finally feeling the earth crumble underneath his feet and his posture breaks again. He nods.

"Let me get changed."

"No problem."

 

* * *

 

Jared leads the way, not because Jensen doesn't know how to cross the few feet between their trailers but because he's the one in power here. Jensen falls naturally behind and pulls his jacket closer to his skin to fend off the cold - he hasn't bothered to close it from the front, and the wind keeps throwing it over the box of letters he's got tucked under one arm. When they duck under the cover of the canopy again, Jensen's hair is wet once more despite the fact that he ran a towel through it before changing out of his wet clothes just moments earlier. At the same time, Jared seems just lightly sprayed, as if all but the topmost layers of hair on his wig are somehow immune to a downpour. He opens the door and hops in, turning around to watch Jensen follow him, and he's still smiling oddly pleasantly like this is all just a friendly visit between coworkers. Jensen doesn't trust him.

"You can hang your jacket here if you want," Jared notes, sliding his fingers through hooks on the wall.

The trailer smells good - like cinnamon, ground coffee and whatever the perfume is that Jared wears to work - and Jensen realises he expected something else altogether. It's clean and lightly decorated, with Jared's laptop open but its screen dark next to a box of letters on the table. Their trailers are nearly identical when it comes to furniture, and Jensen's brain recognises this fact as something of a delayed déjà vu. He hangs his jacket and takes off his shoes, then makes a careful round around the couch to drop his fanmail next to Jared's. If he was ever curious about what made him take the box this time instead of telling Clif to burn it all, he doesn't need to wonder anymore. It's his bait to get Jensen here - and it worked like a charm.

The letters in his box are dry.

"Milk?" he asks.

"I use soy milk," Jensen replies absently, trailing his fingertips over the edges of his own box, "until we get milk that doesn't require stealing and slaughtering calves."

He takes a look just to see Jared roll his eyes. To his surprise, the man doesn't; instead, he kneels down over his fridge and takes a long, hard look at something inside it.  
"This is a bit expired," he says after a while, "but I don't think it's poisonous. Wanna give it a go?"

The word _poisonous_ rings an alarm bell inside Jensen's head. He hasn't been looking - this entire time, he hasn't been looking at what Jared's doing with the coffees. He could have slipped in anything at all while he's been examining the letters.

"Uh, that's, um. It's probably fine. If it's not chunky, it's..."

Jared nods and pulls up, opens the carton and pours some soy milk into one of the cups. Jensen's thinking hard.

"Why'd you have that in there, anyway?" he asks.

"No lactose."

"Right."  
Jensen tries to rack his brain to figure out if Jared is lactose intolerant: he can't remember one way or the other.  
"Does it curdle?"

"What?"

"Does the milk curdle? Are there, uh, flakes?"

Jared peers into the coffee for a moment, then shrugs.  
"Not really."

"Good. It - sometimes does that," Jensen says, absently again as he makes sure to seat himself at the very end of the couch, giving himself the space to move off without issue should the need arise.

Jared picks up the cups and brings them over, handing one to Jensen and keeping the other for himself. Jensen stares at the bewerage for a moment before making up his mind. He turns up his smile, feeling his heart race in his chest, and looks at Jared.

"You ever tried this in coffee?" he asks.

Jared turns to look at him, then his coffee and him again. He returns the smile, although it's slightly colder than before.  
"I have. It's not my thing."

"Right."

Jensen's heart twists. He looks into his cup as Jared picks his own up and sips from it, and the social pressure builds up for Jensen to do the same. He's being paranoid again - he can feel it inside his brain as a strange pressuring weight, telling him he's not thinking normally - but the fear is making his head swim again and he can't think clearly anymore. Finally, he places the cup beside the boxes, hoping he doesn't have to touch it at all.

"So, you..." he starts, shifting.  
He looks at Jared, examines him; he's leaning back in the couch, one arm over the arm rest and the other holding his cup over his thigh. His eyes are moving between the boxes of letters now, and he seems a little off somehow, almost as if he was nervous just like Jensen is.

 _Maybe it's the first time he roofies someone with a cup of coffee,_ a nasty voice murmurs inside Jensen's head.

He shakes it off.

"... took your fanmail in today, huh."

Jared nods slowly.  
"Yeah," he says, sounding as if this is news to him as well, "I did."  
  
He looks at Jensen again and their eyes meet; Jensen feels his pupils dilate. The knowledge of it happening makes his breath catch in his throat - his body's an open book, and he hopes against hope that Jared doesn't know how to read it.  
  
"I was thinking something."

"Yeah?"

"I have a hard time reading them. I can't - concentrate, and I don't _care._ But I thought if you could open a couple for me and read them, maybe it'd be different."

Jensen raises his brows.  
"You want me to read them to you?" he asks.

"Just a couple. Then you can go back to opening yours. Pick the ones that don't misspell my name and aren't three inches thick."  
Jared grimaces.  
"One page or less."

At least it frees him from tasting the coffee, Jensen thinks as he reaches inside the box and starts looking around.

 

* * *

 

Jared listens with his eyes closed and his head resting over the back of the couch, hands on his lap wrapped around his coffee cup and each other, too big to fit there together without touching. There doesn't seem to be a catch: he doesn't stop Jensen when he starts, and he finishes two short letters without a pause, then keeps going with whatever lands in his grip when he puts his hand back in the box.

_Sam is my favourite character. I chose to study law because of him._

_You've given me hope._

_You make me feel like I can be worth something, too._

_Sam has taught me that my fight is just as important as someone else's. That I matter._

"There's a drawing here. You want to see it?" Jensen asks, already putting the picture away.

"No. I don't care."

He places the envelope back in the box and searches for another one, but stops when he catches Jared moving at the edge of his vision and turns to look at him.

"Did you lose it already?" the man asks him.

Jensen shakes his head.  
"It's here."

"Can I see it?"

Surprised, Jensen fishes the letter back in his hand and gives it to Jared. He watches the other pull out the picture, a drawing of Sam and a dog, carefully drawn and coloured by a 16-year-old girl named Mariah from Utah. The rain still pours: it leaks over the windows and drums at the roof of the trailer steadily, uniformly. Jensen forgets himself in the sound of it before Jared finally lays the picture down, shortly followed by his coffee.

"I think that's enough."

He turns his gaze towards Jensen and Jensen feels his body tingle strangely under his gaze. Pins and needles everywhere.

"They seem to view me differently than you do," Jared says to him quietly, never lifting his eyes from him, and in a single moment that makes his heart drop and a sense of nausea spread into his stomach, Jensen realises that he had never really wanted to hear his fanmail - he'd wanted _Jensen_ to hear it, to read it out loud for _himself_.

As these thoughts are still sinking in, Jared continues with the same soft voice: "They seem to think that I'm not a monster, not like you seem to think I am."

Of course they would. Not one of them has lived through what Jensen has lived through - not one of them has the proof that he has of who Jared really is. Jensen brushes his fingers over the bruises on his wrists where Jared held him just a week before, now greenish-brown and faded.

"Why don't you drink your coffee? It's going cold," Jared asks him, faking a small dry smile.

"Turns out I don't really want coffee," Jensen tells him.

He's got no way out of that one, but to his surprise - and his minor relief - Jared doesn't push it.

"But you wanted to talk," the man says instead, "Last week, you wanted to talk."

Jensen nods uncertainly.

"Wanted quite a lot of things," Jared goes on.

He takes his coffee back and sips from it. The shadows from the window are moving over him, forming vertical stripes over him like bars locking him inside some invisible prison, and Jensen hates himself. Hates himself because the moment Jared's not _taking_ him, he wants to offer himself to be taken, as if these few weeks - just this one winter - has broken him to a point where that is the only thing he knows how to do. His cock stirs and he reaches for the coffee.

What's the worst that can happen?

There are no flakes underneath the smooth brown surface. No curdled soy milk to be found, and the flavour is rich. He searches it for traces of something bitter, something that doesn't belong there, but it seems clean. Immediately afterwards he feels a spell of dizziness come over him, and his heart leaps again.

_It's nothing._

Jared glances at him, frowns.  
"You know," he continues as Jensen struggles to cover up the panic flooding into him, his ears full of white noise so that he barely hears - or registers - the words coming out of Jared's mouth, "You're prejudiced. You think you know me, think you've got me all figured out."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You think that I'm shallow, selfish - narcissistic - and that that's all there is to me. Everything that doesn't fit that picture of me that you've painted for yourself you just discard; I can see that. You don't believe that what these fans all have to say about me is true, or worth your time. You don't believe that Sam is a part of me. But isn't Dean a part of you, Jensen? Doesn't all that stuff that makes Dean _Dean_ come from you?"

Jensen lowers the cup back on the table and waits for the adrenaline to settle. All it takes is five minutes, and he'll know if he's overreacting, if he's imagining it, or...  
Jared's gaze is intent and keen upon him, and he avoids it, taking a deep breath as unnoticeably as he can while he's still watching his every move. Then, finally, he forces himself to look at the other again. The bright blue-green of his eyes and the flame-like golden ring surrounding the black void of his pupils; the small frown on him, all an act as he's told Jensen himself. The curve of his pink lips, and the small pout barely noticeably drawing them together.

Some twisted part of Jensen wants to shut him up by kissing him, wants to feel that texture against his lips again. Every other part of him wants to slam his knuckles into them and run the fuck away from the trailer, run until his knees give in and he collapses somewhere far from here, anywhere that Jared can't find him.

"You think a man like that could have a wife, Jensen?" Jared asks him, and this question is a little less rhetorical than the previous ones.

Jensen still doesn't answer it.

"You think a man like that could raise two sons?"

The rain is turning harder, and the drops that collide with the window are now white and solid and bounce off the surface. Jensen's eyes visit the sight and something inside him feels cold when he speaks.  
"There are a lot of husbands and fathers in the world, Jared, and... not all of them are good."

"So to defend your opinion of me," Jared huffs, his voice colder and harder now much like the bits of ice raining onto the trailer, "you're ready to assume what I'm like with people who aren't you. You're ready to fill up a picture that you know nothing about with whatever you want. You ever talk with my boys? My wife?"

Jensen shakes his head absently. It doesn't matter. He doesn't feel a thing in response to the accusations - none of it has any effect on him. Underneath that numbness, however, something hurts. His eyes turn slowly towards the watch on his wrist. 8:02pm. The flood of adrenaline is gone, and the dizzy spell is fading with it.

There are no drugs in his coffee, so he sips it again.

"But you do talk with my fans, and you _know_ that I've never hurt one of them."

At this, Jensen laughs. He doesn't know where the lack of caring stems from. He should still be scared to offend Jared; scared to set him off. It just doesn't seem to matter anymore. He's been through hell, and hell is the worst that Jared can put him through.

"You wouldn't hurt a fan," he says in a cold voice, "they give you everything you want. Attention. Adoration. They tell you everything you want to hear. Everyone else? Everyone else around you gets to live with the person that you really are. You keep this whole place in fear. One wrong move and the entire set gets shut down. Nobody can get any work done. They can't fire you. They can't cancel the fucking show. No - all they can do is bow to you and your tyranny, Jared, as long as it pays the food on their tables. And that's what I thought, too: what options do I have? To leave? To quit my own show, leave behind everything it gives to me, everything I've worked for for a whole decade, just to escape _you?_ But then I realised - you don't control me. You _can't_ control me."

"Yet here you fucking are."

Jared's hand is on Jensen's arm before Jensen can pull away from it, but it takes him some time to realise that there is no grip, only the presence of his coffee-warmed palm over Jensen's skin. As if he's grounding him there, making sure he's not getting up and leaving.

8:05pm.

"Tell me. Why the fuck do you hate me?" Jared asks him, and Jensen glares at him.

Distantly, he realises something about himself: that he's never been angry like this before. Never ready to ignite and explode at a single spark. Never ready to tear into someone at a moment's notice, to savour the taste of their blood gushing into his mouth and over his skin in pulses as he rips open an artery. His eyes flare, and he can feel the green in them turn into fire. Then he swallows and smiles.

"Because you raped me," he says, and his voice equals Jared's in its cold emptiness.  
He wants to pant, wants to laugh, wants to throw over the table and break everything he can reach - everything, including each of Jared's bones.  
"And then you raped me again."

There's a shadow, like a mirror image of everything that Jensen's feeling, in Jared's gaze. In a split second, Jensen can both feel him draw his hand back and how blood escapes his fingertips before they part from his skin.

"That what you call it?" the taller asks in a voice that tries to sound cold, but manages only to shine a depth of emptiness below it like a clear glass window staring into a black hole.

"That's what it _is._ "

There's a moment of silence before Jared chuckles, the sound now solid and opaque again.  
"Look," he says, "You can call it whatever you like, but I've got copies of those videos on my laptop. I've watched them, trust me. That's called evidence, and it's pretty clear; you're the one spreading your legs for me, like you put it a week ago. I'm not forcing you into anything. More than that, uh - how do you think you're gonna explain the whole part where you fuck me in the ass, if you're gonna call that whole thing a rape? I mean - you're the one initiating it, Jensen. The audio's pretty clear. I didn't just step in there and put you in my ass. Or are you talking about the thousand fucks we've had since then? The ones that pretty much, if my memory holds, still started with you letting me in your trailer every single fucking time, knowing perfectly well what we're gonna be doing afterwards. I mean, I didn't ask you specifically what you wanted to do, but the fact that you'd always undress for me and bend over for me -"

At first, it seems like the world is moving, and Jensen, for a split second, really thinks he's falling. Instead, when he recovers, he's on his feet, standing up, _towering_ above Jared, and he's breathing like he's been choking for months, heavy and hard, hands fisted up into hard balls of bone and bloodless white tight skin stretched over the shapes of his knuckles, nails embedded into his palms.

"That how you fuck your wife, too? So that she has to rub her fucking skin off every day to make it feel like she's not tainted from the way you touch her?"

He doesn't even recognise his own voice. It doesn't seem to come from within him, but outside of him, like a thunderstorm is shouting in his stead. His whole body is shaking from rage and somehow it feels like there's a bullet buried in his stomach, a wound that he's barely yet recognised but which is already bleeding into his cavities and all over his intestines and organs. Killing him.

"That how your boys got made, Jared?"

The next moment is nothing but a flash. He's the smaller one again, in nothing but a blink of an eye. He's breathing the same air with Jared, and he closes his eyes, expecting a blow. He feels the man's fingers fist into the front of his shirt and just like the last time it happened, he prepares to die; the world is quiet for him, nothing but the steady drumming of ice against metal, and he wonders how it can be that they only have these moments when it storms. He feels like he's walking the steps back against the wall, not like Jared's pushing him; like he's taking each step on his own, nothing but the faintest pressure over his chest from the grip, yet the wall greets him with a heavy blow and shakes the air out of him.

This is the hundreth time Jared's got him pinned against something, and just like before, he can barely even begin to care.

The hit comes as a brush of wires against his cheek. Then it passes, painlessly, and turns into the steady grind of stubble against his own. His eyes open just the slightest bit, his vision blurry from the tangle of lashes crossing back and forth in front of his view, and his lips part to the blast of warm air against his ear.

Jared breathes against him, and Jensen feels him shake just as badly as he's shaking, although it seems that at least Jared's legs are holding him up, something that can't be said for Jensen's. Time seems to have slowed down significantly while he waits for something to happen, Jared's knuckles bruising the middle of his chest as an undertone to the sound of his breathing in Jensen's ear, and he can hear the wet sound his tongue makes as it prepares a word and then shoves it back down his throat before trying again.

"You," Jared says breathlessly, in a voice that could be read as aroused if the rest of him didn't scream against that reading with every single atom of his being, "know nothing about rape, Jensen."

Jensen chokes as Jared's grip of his shirt falls apart and the man steps back, their bodies parting no more than a couple inches at most. Jared watches him, and in a strange haze Jensen realises that his pupils are wide and reflect the window to their side like the surface of still waters. He smiles, but the smile looks like it's been cut into his face and set in place with stitches and staples; like his mouth should be bleeding from its presence.

And for the first time, Jensen realises as he hears his breath hitch and understands that the reflection in his eyes is because of a thick layer of tears in them, he's witnessing Jared, not Sam, cry.


	3. The Child In You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for explicit references to extreme underage rape + emetophobia.

* * *

 

Jensen's mind seems disorganized for a moment. He's blinking, and through each blink, he visits a different vision. There are dead things littering the ground in some war time photograph he's seen in a magazine. Disease. Cities being built, construction sites in a state of premeditated chaos. Devastation. Desolation. Wilderness. The parking lot and the dark puddles of water and the ripples on their surfaces. When he closes his eyes, he sees Jared's turned back and himself exiting the trailer over and over and over again.

The door opens and closes in a slam. His heart races painfully as he throws aside his jacket on the way to the bathroom, and he's half-convinced he's suffering a heart attack when he doubles over the toilet and throws up repeatedly. He's shaking, covered in cold sweat, and all the anger and pain and fear and emotions that the English language doesn't have the words for exit him through his mouth with the bitter, acidic bile of his stomach. The sprays inside the toilet's bowl are a watery shade of brown, and the water in it soon turns into a foamy repetition of the same, but he keeps gagging even after there's nothing in him to throw up anymore and his arms have given in, leaving him to lean his forehead onto the floor, looking like a desperate man collapsed into a prayer in front of the toilet seat.

 _You don't get to take this from me_ , his brain throbs on each heartbeat.  
_You don't get to take this from me you don't get to take this from me not this you have no right you don't get to do this to me you are not my god you are not a judge you cannot take my experience from me you have no right to dictate my life for me you have no right_

For the first time, he thinks seriously of quitting. There's a part of him that wants to pick up his phone right now, call someone, any one person who has the power to accept his statement, and then leave with nothing but his backpack and his ID and enough of cash to stop three, four states away from here. He thinks of a motel room, a security chain, the blissful existence of some place where no one can reach him. The very thought of tomorrow - of getting up like none of this has happened - seems like a shovel digging into his guts and twisting them around its blade. Tugging at them. He gags again, but after that, his breathing is heavy and deep and wet against the bathroom floor.

He's alive.

Somehow, he's alive.

The concept seems strange. Repeatedly, he's accepted his death, embraced it, invited it in. It doesn't take a genius to realise that he's been chasing it the only plausible way it could come to him: he's looked for that logical end to these months, the final blow to stop the hollow aching pain inside him. His anger, the unpredictable beast that has settled inside his body like a foreign object, has been nothing but disappointment at the realisation that each and every time, he's survived; that somehow, the stubborn life within him has persevered. That none of the violence he's faced has been enough to throttle the arrogant, conceited force within him that has forced him to keep existing up to this point despite all of the suffering he's been through. All the way until now that Jared's truly taken _everything_ from him.

First, he took his control.  
Then, he took his body.  
And now, he's taken even his right to feel violated by it - the last thing that was truly his, the last thing that he could use to justify himself, the pain he's felt, the shame, his only protection against the guilt that has followed him like a second shadow ever since the first night that Jared came into his trailer. As if that wasn't enough, Jensen himself handed that over to Jared like a gift on a silver platter.

He'd spoken it as a last line of defense; he'd meant to throw it in Jared's face like a shield, a barrier that Jared wouldn't be able to cross. And he hadn't. Instead, Jared took it and turned it against him. _Jensen_ wasn't the victim. _He_ had no right to claim that title. _His_ pain didn't matter. What he'd been through was nothing.

So what is he, then?

Nothing. He's nothing.

A being that has no control, no body, and no right to his own experiences is _nothing_.

He'd cried before, and he expects it to happen now. The reaction is natural and belongs here, belongs to the loss of hope, to the devastation that feels like his bones have been reduced to dust and his brain is on fire from the pain that twists his core and tears it apart over and over again in waves of flashbacks and memories and the echoing voices inside his head. Yet there are no tears. Sometimes, a dry sob breaks through, flirting with or marrying a gag here or there, but his face remains dry if not for the sweat that covers him like a film.

His body stays there for hours, curled up into a tight ball on the floor in front of the toilet, his nose stuffed, his throat sore and the aftertaste of vomit and coffee lingering on his palate. His mind, on the other hand, isn't there; it's stuck in a limbo that is sometimes a mixture of presence and past, and sometimes of his subconscious and his memories and the sensations in his body, the tingling of his limbs and the numbness of his cheek pressed against the floor. The twist in his neck. The bruising in his knees from the weight of his body and the hard surface of the tiles underneath. Sometimes, he's not entirely awake: he can feel periods of time fade into some kind of a haze from which he surfaces and into which he succumbs again in seamless pulses or an uneven rhythm. The next time he gets up, the digital numbers on the microwave let him know it's been five hours since he rushed back inside.

His head aches. He stumbles around in his trailer like a drunk man, and as he reaches for a glass and fills it with water, he knocks over a container of macaroni that explodes all over the trailer's floor. It almost feels like he doesn't even register it happening: he feels the hard bits of pasta crush under his shoes when he walks over them and falls onto the couch to drink. His eyes sting as he stares into the quiet night, trying to remember when it stopped raining.

The yellow glow of street lights, and the white glow of the lamps set into the walls of the buildings a little bit further away, paint an imitation of his window onto the floor and the table in front of him. The same image reflects upon the glass of his candles. With a trembling hand, he reaches to light one, then another; the smooth, sweet scent of vanilla flows into the air, and the flames dance for him as he watches them.

It's almost two in the morning when his phone vibrates inside his pocket. It takes him ten, fifteen minutes to pull it out, but in the end, the growing feeling of slowly choking pushes him into doing so. Not knowing, somehow, still feels worse than its alternatives.

_"For the first time, the thought of losing something scares me. I don't know what I'll do if you go."_

Nothing in Jensen's expression changes when he reads it, and he places the phone down on the table as idly as he brought it up in the first place. He stares at it for a while even after the screen has turned itself off, mind empty and a sense of weight lingering over him.

In a few more minutes, the phone vibrates again and the screen lights up: another message has appeared into the conversation.

_"I haven't been hurt like that in a long time."_

The screen dies again, then lights up in five more minutes.

_"Don't fuck with me, Ackles. You're not sleeping. I know you're not fucking sleeping."_

Jensen's eyes move up to the windows for a moment and he considers drawing down the curtains, but something about staying completely silent and still in the darkness only lit by two small candles makes him feel safer, and the thought of moving instills a sensation of pure horror within him, so he does nothing. Then, he hears a trailer door opening and closing, and his heart skips a beat. His entire body grows cold in the split second it takes for him to jump up from the couch and rush to his door to pull on the security chain, and he backs up a few steps to wait for the inevitable. It comes sooner than he wanted: he can hear Jared's steps stop in front of his door, and then nothing again through the thunder of his own blood rushing in his ears.

A long while passes, but Jensen's not sure if it's seconds or minutes. Then, Jared's voice breaks it.

"Open the door, Jensen."

He's close enough for the words to be audible, but the door between them muffles them significantly. Jensen's trembling again. Afraid.

He should have ran while he had the chance.

If he'd call Clif -

"Just open the fucking door, okay?"

\- would he protect him? If he told him _everything_ , would he listen? Would he choose him over Jared? Who else could he call? The police, who wouldn't believe a word he said anyway, not against the evidence, just as Jared had said.

He's got no chance. Nothing at all. And so, he steps forwards again.

"No," he says quietly, unsure if Jared can even hear him, so he clears his throat and tries again, this time a little louder, "No. I won't. Go back in your trailer, Jared."

"We need to talk, Jensen. Open the fucking door."

"No. We don't. I want you to leave, Jared. Don't make this worse."

There's a silence, which Jensen expects to end in a fist or a kick against his door. Instead, Jared speaks again.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Then you'll have a hell of a lot to explain when the sun comes up."

A quiet chuckle precedes a brief silence. Then, as if Jensen said nothing at all, Jared speaks again.  
"I need to see you," he says.

Jensen stays quiet, but he feels the sting of tears in his eyes, more from exhaustion and hopelessness than any real emotion.  
"Why?" he asks after a moment, "Why me, Jared?"

"Because. Just because."

"That's not a good enough fucking reason for ruining my fucking life, Jared."

"Not everything in life happens for a reason, I guess."

"Why do you need to take everything? What did I ever fucking do to you to deserve any of this?"

A tear falls silently over Jensen's cheek. Jared doesn't answer, but Jensen can hear him shift outside from the way gravel grinds against the asphalt below.

"Just let me in, Jen. Let me talk."

"All I ever do is let you talk, and all it ever does is fuck me over, Jared!"

"Let me rephrase that: let me in so I can explain."

"Whatever you want to say, you can say it to the fucking door. I'm done. This is over."

"No. I won't tell your door this, or anything else for that matter."

"Then I guess you won't get to explain at all. I'm going to bed, Jared. I'm serious - if you're not gone in ten minutes, I'm calling the police."

"Can I ask you a question before you do that?"

"I don't care."

"Do you want me to kill myself?"

Jensen closes his eyes. For a while, he just breathes, just as numb as ever.  
"Go ahead," he finally says.

"I wasn't asking for a fucking permission, Jensen. I asked if you want me to do it. Because you sure as fuck sound like you're trying to achieve that."

Slowly, Jensen opens his eyes again. Then, against all reason, he reaches his hand out and removes the safety chain.  
"You get ten minutes," he tells the door.

"Ten minutes will do."

"Good."

The night air smells of wet asphalt and earth.

 

* * *

 

Jared steps in, his form blocking the light from the outside for a moment. The candles barely light his features, but Jensen realises that he looks almost as terrible as he does, and turns his gaze away out of deep-seated politeness. He notices a white rectangle painted upon Jared's side, and his eyes catch onto that instead: he's carrying a single piece of paper, but its blank side is turned towards Jensen as Jared closes the door, and it's impossible to tell what it is.

"Can we sit down for a second?" Jared asks him, and Jensen nods.

This time, Jared moves in first. Jensen lets him take the side of the couch that leads to a dead end; he won't be pushed into another corner again. Still, he follows the other and sits down, more or less uncaring of how this situation will end - all he wants to do is get it over with, see Jared out the door and sleep, or die trying. The latter, more and more, seems like the option he'd prefer.

"You've got eight minutes left," he states.

Jared nods.  
"I was told to show you this."

"You were told?" Jensen asks with a sigh as Jared hands him the paper.

He gets no clarification, merely a confirmation in the shape of a short nod. He grabs the paper and folds it open, turning it so that he can read the text upon it in the candlelight. It takes him a moment to realise what he's looking at, but when he does, a hint of genuine curiosity and a sense of morbid satisfaction settles inside him. It's a copy of a doctor's statement, clearly intended to serve as proof for an application of some sort - out of its original context, not much of it makes sense to his overworked brain, but the list of diagnoses stands on its own.

Beside him, Jared sits in a bowed pose, breathing deep and steady again, counting seconds between each inhale and exhale.

_296.33 Major depressive disorder, recurrent: severe without psychotic features_  
_300.02 Generalized anxiety disorder_  
_301.81 Narcissistic personality disorder  
_ _312.39 Trichotillomania_

Jensen stares at the list for a moment before realising it's not enough. That nothing about it explains why he's been through the hell that he's been through. The only thing it confirms is that the person sitting beside him is as broken as Jensen imagined. With a silent exhale, he folds the paper over again and hands it back to Jared, who takes it and stretches it between his hands, holding its folded corners between his fingertips. Then, instead of speaking, he places the paper on the table with the blank side up, picks up the pen sitting idly beside one of the candles, and writes something in his wide handwriting onto it. In the midst of it, he hesitates briefly, then scribbles one last note at the end of a short list, places the pen down again, straightens up and hands the paper back to Jensen without looking at him.

_Two unlisted:_

_301.7 Antisocial personality disorder  
_ _309.81 Posttraumatic stress disorder_

_1 doesn't meet full criteria for official diagnosis  
_ _2 only you & Clif & Genevieve know_

Jensen reads through it slowly, stopping at the end to wonder idly whether or not Jared has memorized the entire DSM-IV just so he can refer to his diagnoses by the codes, or if remembering them this way is a means of controlling the information, either to embrace it or distance himself from it. He doesn't ask, and this time, he doesn't give the paper back either. He sits with it for a few minutes, until the broken strings of thought finally remind him of the time.

"That all?" he asks, placing the paper on the table, "You've got two minutes left, so if you have something else to say, say it now."

He doesn't look at Jared when Jared reaches for the paper. He looks at the window, and his stomach aches as he waits.

"One minute," he updates when the numbers on the display change again.

Jared breathes in, holds it for a moment, then lets it out. He looks away and shifts, letting out a small sound that resembles a scoff - and then, he draws in air sharply and turns towards Jensen. Out of suspicion, Jensen meets his eyes; before he has the chance to turn away, Jared lets the air out again, this time in words.

"I'm sorry," he says, and Jensen wonders if it's the first time he's ever said it.  
"Jensen, I'm sorry."

A small smile makes Jensen's mouth twitch. He lets the silence stretch - 32 seconds or so - and just watches Jared, the way his borrowed curls frame his face, flawlessly as always, and the manner his skin appears pale in the glow of the candles, his eyes... sincere, Sam-like. There's still a shadow of something in them, something unusual, like just the ghost of upset lingers in him and shines through the clear surface of his eyes. Jensen wonders whether any of that was real before, or if his tears had just been an act to throw Jensen off balance even worse, and his stomach twists and turns at the memory. He'd held onto that word, _rape_ , like it could have saved him. Like it could have created a solid wall between him and Jared - like there could have been no way for Jared to hurt him once he'd said it. Like just voicing it would have made him _understand._

But what had Jared really done? Taken it from him, yes, but the way he'd done it - as if _he_ could claim it. As if he had more right to the word than Jensen ever did. As if he'd had it worse. But who the hell had ever hurt him? Who could have had the chance? He was 6'4", built to kill. He'd been that more or less the entire time Jensen had known him, although his attitude had sure gotten worse since the first years they'd spent together. Steadily, even; there had been a time Jensen had felt, if not comfortable, then at least safe to live under the same roof with him. Could it have happened then? He tries to recall a turning point, but watching their history flash through his mind is like watching milk sour. It happened slowly, almost unnoticeably, and Jensen shudders and looks away.

"It's too little," he hears himself say in a detached voice, "too late."

His eyes visit the sight of the paper Jared had brought him, and the scribbles of text upon it. Antisocial personality disorder - wasn't that psychopathy?

_'Doesn't meet criteria.'_

A short, dry chuckle escapes Jensen. From where he stands, there's no criteria Jared could have fit better.

"Why'd you add those two in?" he asks instead of pointing out that Jared had just ran out of time, "What was the point?"

Jared's gaze turns towards the paper too. He seems to think about it for a moment, and Jensen wonders whether he's aware that his last minute is over and he simply doesn't care, or if it had slipped his mind already. Then Jared shrugs.

"I made a call," he tells the window in an indifferent voice, "and asked what I should do if I want to keep you."

 _As if you'd ever had me in the first place,_ Jensen wants to spit at him. Instead, he swallows a mouthful of saliva still tasting like the contents of his stomach and wishes he could just stand up and grab a glass of water to chase away the taste. Before Jared has the chance to continue, he realises nothing's holding him back from doing so; this is his trailer. He's in control here. Jared isn't. He'd never be again. And so he stands up, turns his back on the one man who makes him feel like he shouldn't, and walks to the kitchen space. He fills up a glass feeling Jared watch him the entire time, but he refuses to turn around, and drinks with his back still turned. Jared doesn't move.

"And?" he asks then, barely out of a gulp.  
His voice is uncaring, unkind. He loves it, feels it echo the rage and hurt bubbling within him. This situation is giving him power over Jared; even if Jared thinks it's for show only, for Jensen, it's more than that. It's been growing in him for a while now, and this, this is where he's drawn his line. This is where it ends, one way or another.

Slowly he turns around again, stretching his neck more to show how little he cares than to shake the ache in it. He wants to hurt Jared back - show him that his pain is just as meaningless to Jensen as Jensen's is to him.

If only he really felt it, it might have worked, too.

"And I was told to show you this. Explain."

Jensen grimaces.  
"So you have a diagnosis. Good for you," he hisses, throwing his head to the side in half-anger, half-anxiety, "That doesn't make a difference. What you do is on you. I don't care what a doctor labels your behaviour, Jared. I don't give a _fuck_. What I care about is how you treat me, and I don't deserve that. _No one_ deserves that. But you didn't answer me; why did you add in things that weren't on the list to begin with?"

A frustrated breath escapes Jared and he twitches indecisively: for a moment, Jensen hopes he's about to get up, walk out. Leave. So that he can go flush the toilet and go to bed and forget this ever happened.

He fills up another glass of water, watching Jared struggle with his explanation.

"They're - the first one - I'm treated on that basis. I don't fill the criteria because I'm not in fucking prison."

Jensen laughs.  
"You fucking should be," he growls, drowns the wave of fear into a long drink.

Jared merely glances at him, his expression tense with barely contained anger.  
"Yeah, well," he grunts, "I'm not. The second one - I thought you might relate. I thought it might mean something to you."

Jensen lets that pass right through him without giving it a thought. He's not falling for this again. He's not here to give sympathy for Jared. Not anymore.

"Anything else you want to say before you walk the fuck out of my life, Jared?" he asks coldly.

"Yes."

Jensen's insides go cold in a split second when Jared does get up, but not to leave. He crosses the distance between them and corners Jensen in the kitchen, making him instinctively take a step back so that his body collides with the unforgivingly solid counter behind him. And he hates himself. All that power he held is slipping through him like he's a fucking sieve, and he can almost feel small antlers poke through his scalp as his eyes widen and his pupils blow out again. He breathes out a small laugh.

 _Not today,_ he tells himself, forces a long sharp breath of air back into his lungs and straightens up. His body parts with the counter, and he stands chest to chest with Jared.

_I am not your prey, tiger boy._

Jared seems to measure him, an examining look in his eyes. Jensen allows it to him, if only to let him see that he's not backing off again. He refuses to shrink and shrivel under his gaze, refuses to hand him the power he's fought so hard to take a hold of. And finally, in a moment that feels like a miracle to Jensen, it's Jared whose posture changes. He turns submissive, smaller, and that same sincerity from before returns to his eyes.

"Give me one more chance," he begs.

"You've had enough. Life isn't a fucking game. You don't get to start over once you fuck up. I'm not your fucking toy, and you'll never treat me that way again. Never, Jared."

Jared swallows, nodding; his gaze escapes Jensen's, travels the sight of the dimly lit trailer, its dark corners and the shadows cast by each object facing the candles. He lets out a strained laugh, throws his head and then his shoulders like he's trying to chase off an itch, and looks at Jensen again.

"But I need you, Jensen. I need you _because_ of that. Because you're the only person who's ever put up a fight. You don't let me get away with it."

"No," Jensen spits, "It's not on me. I'm not here to make you a better person. I've had enough - you've hurt me enough. I gave you every fucking chance, Jared, and you blew them all. Guess which one of us will have to live with the consequences of that? It's not you. You've fucked me up, and I've had _enough_."

"I get that," Jared says, and Jensen enjoys the unexpected tone of distress in his voice, "I _get_ that, Jensen. You don't owe me anything. But you don't - _you_ don't get it, you don't understand what this means to -"

Something in Jensen breaks. Before he knows it, he's moving; his shoulder collides with Jared's firm shape as he pushes past him, throws him back against the counter instead as he walks to the door and opens it. He holds it open, the wet distance between their trailers illuminated by the nightly glow of the studios.

"Leave," he says firmly.

"Jen -"

"I said leave. I gave you ten minutes. You've had twenty. If you give a shit about me, Jared, you do as I say now and go."

It takes a while for Jared to budge, but when he does, he seems to comply. Jensen watches him hide the paper he's carried through the encounter back in his pocket, and then he walks out of the kitchen and to the doorway. Right outside it, foot still between the frame so that Jensen can't lock him out, he turns to Jensen again, and this time, Jensen's certain he can see _something_ behind the mask. Upset, anxiety, fear; he can't really make out what it is, but it isn't anger.

"Don't leave me alone with this," Jared says in a voice that Jensen has never heard before: it's somehow broken, thin and hollow, desperate - it sounds like the voice of a scared child.

And with that, he's off; Jared jumps down the last step, shoes colliding with the asphalt with a heavy, wet sound, and he walks away without looking back. Jensen watches him through the shrinking gap between the trailer's wall and the door he's closing until the man vanishes behind a corner and he can hear the other trailer's door open and close. After that he closes his own, locks it, but leaves the chain unattached. Somehow, he knows he's got nothing more to fear tonight.

 

* * *

 

The alarm goes off in an off-tune manner, somehow stretched and wrong as Jensen reaches for it, still half-asleep after only three hours of what can barely be described as rest. He gets up, showers, glances out at the grey, misty morning, and dresses up still yawning. He feels nauseous as he enters the chilly air outside, and although he doesn't consciously register doing so, he makes sure to cross Jared's trailer from a distance. When he enters the next trailer, he sees Clif standing there, leaning to the table with a stressed look on his face: the man turns to him, eyes him for a moment and then shakes his head.

"You can go back," he tells him, "We're not filming."

"What?" Jensen asks, barely registering the words, "Who died?"

Clif grimaces.  
"No one, I hope. Jared called for a doctor an hour ago. We got word he's not in any condition to work today, but nobody really knows more than that. Anyway, we don't need you standing around there for nothing, so take the day off."

For a moment, Jensen does nothing but stare. The collar of his flannel tickles idly at his neck and he swats it off, and that movement brings him back to life; without a word, his body stuck between a hollow feeling of nothing and a boiling, heated rage, he turns around and walks out of the trailer. It takes him no more than a minute to reach Jared's trailer, and his fist hits the door with a loud bang.

"Come on, you asshole!" he yells and bangs the door again, "Open up!"  
Nothing happens, so he lands his fist into the wall instead and leans towards the door. He doesn't care if Jared is going to let him talk: he's going to do it anyway.

"You must be fucking kidding me, right?" he keeps shouting, "You really think this is a game - I shut you down, so you shut _the entire production_ down? If you think that's how it goes, you're fucking - you've sunk lower than I thought even you would. This isn't just about you, you know? There are a hundred people in there, and they're gonna get nothing done today, all because of your fucking temper tantrum - because you're trying to blackmail _me._ This isn't just about you and me anymore, Jared; you can't do this to all those people. I don't know what the fuck makes you think that you're so important that you can just -"

The door opens, and Jensen's suddenly face to face with a man he's never seen in his life before. He falls quiet and even though his heart is still beating loud and hard in his chest, his anger falls second to surprise.

"Who the fuck are you?" he manages to breathe out.

The man watches him for a moment before answering.  
"Rodney Grant, Mr. Padalecki's psychiatrist. You must be Jensen Ackles."  
A hint of a smile crosses his face.  
"I don't think anyone else would be trying to break his door for missing work today."

Jensen feels himself draw back; he doesn't know what to say.  
"Sorry, I -"

"Don't worry about it," Grant says, "I understand."

"Is he... in there?"

"He is, although... not necessarily in a condition to talk."

Jensen swallows, trying hard to not feel guilty; he knows better than that.  
"What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing serious. I mean he's not hurt, but he's taken some medicine to help him rest, and while I think he'd let you in if you wanted to come, I don't think now is the best time for you to get the answers you're here for."

From the background, Jensen hears Jared's voice, but not the specific words spoken. The same seems to pass for Grant, who turns towards the voice; Jensen cranes his neck to see past the man's frame, but the only thing he can see is the kitchen, and Jared isn't there. Still, when Grant asks him to repeat, his voice comes clearly across the psychiatrist's shoulder.

"Is it Jensen?" Jared's voice asks, sounding off.

"Yes," Grant tells him.

"Let him in. You can go."

Jensen meets Grant's blue-grey eyes when the man turns towards him and watches him examiningly.

"Do you want to come in?" he asks, and for a moment, Jensen hesitates.

"Do you think I should?" he asks then.

For a moment, the psychiatrist stays quiet, and Jensen waits. Then, the older man steps out of the trailer.  
"I know you may want to challenge him," Grant says to him quietly, "but he's not in a good place. So if you're still angry, and if you want to confront him, this is not the time. You have every right to do so, but I have to look out for my patients. I know what he's done, and the anger you just showed is entirely understandable - and justified. But I'm not comfortable allowing you in if your presence will distress him further."

Jensen swallows.  
"Why are you here in the first place?" he asks, perhaps more sharply than he intended.

"I'm afraid that is confidential," Grant answers with an apologetic smile, "but what you're thinking is probably correct."

For a moment, Jensen considers it. He didn't come here to talk with Jared - he came here to sink his fist into his face. Being denied that opportunity, he should just want to walk away, but he doesn't. He lingers there, switching weight from one foot to the other, eyes on the doorway even though he can't see inside. Finally, he turns back to face Grant.

"So this isn't - it's not just a temper tantrum," he asks, conflicted.

Grant shakes his head.  
"With a personality like his, it may be hard to tell the difference sometimes. But no, right now, I don't think it's about that."

Jensen can't afford concern. He hates feeling it leak into his body, hates how it seems to fill his stomach with lead, and how it softens up his features, returns his shoulders down and unfists his hands. One more glance inside the trailer, one deep breath, and he nods.

"I won't confront him," he hears himself say.

"You can leave at any time," Grant says, and they switch places as Jensen climbs up on the trailer's steps and Grant steps down onto the pavement, "If you feel attacked, or if he uses this opportunity to try to make you feel responsible -"

"I'll leave."

"Good."

They share a look before Grant steps away, nods at him and walks away. As Jensen watches him go, he realises he has no plan from this point onwards - that perhaps he never did; he walked here fuelled by his anger at a perceived injustice, and now he no longer knows if there was one to begin with. Hesitantly, he steps inside and closes the door behind him.

Everything in the trailer seems exactly as it used to be. On the table, two boxes of letters still sit right as Jensen last saw them, although a few torn envelopes have appeared beside them, implying that Jared has at least opened some on his own. There's a kettle on the small stove, but the power isn't on, and a package for some kind of medicine sits on the counter next to a ring of water in the shape of a glass.

Jared isn't there. Jensen breathes steadily, forcedly, as he turns around and faces the open bedroom door. There, on the bed, he sees what he came looking for: with a blanket thrown over his shoulders, Jared sits watching him. His eyes seem glassed over, and when he shifts, his movements are slowed down and imprecise, almost like he's drunk, and a part of Jensen feels relieved. Instinctively, he waited for Jared to be in power, like at any other time, ready to take control and push him and hurt him. But this Jared won't, _can't_ do it, and Jensen steps closer. They watch each other, circling like dogs about to enter a fight, until Jensen seats himself on the other end of the bed as far from Jared as possible while still staying in the same room with him. Jared closes his eyes and leans back, his head sinking into a large pillow. The glass of water that Jensen assumes left the ring on the table sits on the bedside table, and Jensen realises he's never been to Jared's bedroom before: confident that Jared won't be making any sudden movements anytime soon, he lets his eyes wander.

An acoustic guitar rests in its stand against the wall. Beside it, pinned to a notice board, several family photographs are on display: a strange place to keep them unless they have a personal meaning to him, Jensen realises. It seems odd and conflicting to him that Jared, who does everything for show, wouldn't put those in a place where he could use them to present himself as a devoted father and a husband. His image is everything to him, yet here, he's keeping his photos in the most private part of his trailer where no one of any importance will see them. Unable to decipher the myster, Jensen moves on: next to the photographs hangs a leather bracelet, but its significance isn't clear, and several notes such as the shooting schedule, some phone numbers and the business card of a Vancouver-based pizzeria are pinned on its left side. On the other side of the room the bedside table, other than for the glass sitting upon it and a phone attached to its charger, is empty.

It doesn't look nearly as much like the bedroom of a serial killer that Jensen had pictured in his mind.

For a minute or two that seem to stretch on endlessly, a perfect silence reigns the trailer, only once broken by the sound of a car's horn somewhere in the distance. Throughout it, Jensen tries to figure out what he's there for, and what he wants to say; in the end, the only words he finds are little more than a crime against humanity.

"You... you wanna talk about it?" he hears himself ask, gaze turning back to Jared.

"Do you?" Jared asks him in return.  
They're looking at each other now, Jared's head still bent back and resting on the pillow like he isn't quite strong enough to hold up its weight.

Jensen shakes his head, and Jared closes his eyes again.

"Then let's not," the younger concludes, his speech slurring slightly.

Another few minutes pass in silence. Jensen feels himself get lost in it: his mind turns idle, empty, and his eyes get stuck on the side of the next trailer visible from the window. When Jared speaks again, the very presence of a sound makes him jump.

"You like me better this way?" he asks Jensen, but his tone is impossible to read.

"Drugged up?"

A small smile stretches upon Jared's lips. His eyes are still closed. On the table, his phone's screen lights up to indicate a message - both the sound and vibration are turned off. Jensen doesn't make a note of it. Instead, he sees something he didn't expect as he turns around and faces the door. There's a mirror on it; the presence of that doesn't surprise him in the least. What does is the fact that it's covered with a black shirt, one that hangs so far down over it that it hides almost the entire reflection of the room.

"Never seen you not want to look at yourself before," Jensen notes, and Jared finally opens one eye to peer at the mirror.

They look at it together for a sluggish while until Jared lets out a small sound that only vaguely recalls amusement.

"You ever get that?" Jared asks him, and Jensen turns back to him again.

"All the time," Jensen replies, and his heart seems to skip a beat, "But I thought you were above things like that."

Slowly, Jared shakes his head. Both his eyes are open again, but he doesn't look at Jensen; instead, he stares past the door seemingly at nothing in particular.

"Can I ask you something?" Jensen finally speaks.

"Can I stop you?"

A hint of a smile passes Jensen's lips, and he shakes his head.  
"No. But I guess you can just decide not to answer."

He turns his gaze back towards the photographs. In one of them, Jared's got his youngest kid on his shoulders, and the boy is smiling a wide toothless grin. Jensen strains to recall his name - Shepherd?

"Does she know?"

His voice sounds strange in his own ears and the words keep echoing inside his brain as he watches Jared turn his gaze from him towards the photographs. His expression is unreadable as he looks from one to the other, and finally stops in the lower corner over a photograph of himself smiling next to his wife, who is showing off their engagement ring. Jensen tries to read into anything he does - the swallow, the slow blink, the unnaturally deep breathing, but none of it seems related to what he's thinking, if anything at all. Like everything else, it takes a long while for Jared to answer, and when he finally does, his answer is nothing but a nod so small that Jensen almost misses it.

After that comes another lengthy, stretching silence, and Jensen doesn't know what to ask next. What does he want to know? If Genevieve knows that her husband is repeatedly raping another man at work, or how she reacted to those news, or if she cares at all?

"What... kind of a relationship do you two have, anyway?" he asks in the end.

"Normal," Jared answers plainly, "We're a married couple with kids and the rest is exactly like you'd picture it."

"That's hard to believe, everything considered."

Jared glances at him, and despite the unfocused look in his eyes, it feels sharp to Jensen.

"What do you want to know?" Jared asks him, and his voice fits his gaze.

"She can't be alright with this."

"It's more complicated than that, Jensen."

Jensen raises his brows disbelievingly.  
"She's your _wife._ "

"And she knows me - much better than you do."  
There's a hint of irritation in Jared's voice again, but it's blunted and blurred by the effects of the medication he's taken, whatever that might be.  
"She knows what I need."

"A man?"

His response seems to take Jared by surprise.

"What?" he asks, a tone of real confusion in his voice, "No - I'm not talking about - this isn't about sexual orientation. She knows why I need _you_ , and she's alright with that."

Jensen's brows stay lifted.  
"She knows why you need me," he repeats.

"Yeah."

"So why the fuck haven't you told me?" he asks.

"I have, Jensen, I - fuck. I keep telling you, and it's like you aren't even listening. Let me try again," Jared growls, rising up from his nest of pillows and leaning forwards until he's sitting cross-legged opposite of Jensen.  
"I need you because you are the only person in the world who makes me feel like I could be human, too."

For a moment, he hesitates; his eyes shift towards the photos again.

"With my family - it's more complicated than that," he slowly starts again, and Jensen lets him, "You think I'm the same with you as I'm with my wife. You think I don't care about my kids. But you've never actually seen me with them. I'm different with them, but it's so fucking exhausting - I get so fucking drained. And with her, it's like I'm conditioned to be the best I can. To always be what _she_ needs, what our marriage needs, because I need _her_ and I do what I need to do to keep her with me. Distance balances it; I work a lot, and I want them out of the way when I do it, because I just - I fucking can't keep up with everything they need. It's all about them, all the time. You don't know that. You've never been married, you've never had kids. You don't know what it takes. It's constant, it's - it's an endless struggle to be in perfect control, playing your role, getting it right. Raising people out of your children when you're not a person yourself. Acting, 24/7, so that you can be a good husband, a good father, when you don't even know how to be a human being. But with you, I don't have a... I feel like I don't need to, to - it's like you... _fuck_."

And suddenly, a piece of a puzzle falls in place. Jensen stares at Jared, at the way he struggles to find the words, and he realises that the man in front of him is scared of him. Not because _Jensen_ scares him, but because the way Jensen makes him feel does. Everywhere else, he has a predesigned role. With everyone else, he can find a symbiotic balance where he can adjust his behaviour in return for some benefit or another. With Jensen, he's got nothing. There's no role that he can slip into, because the signals given to him are so conflicting: at the same time, everything around him tells him he should be more than just a good friend to Jensen. That they should be _brothers_ , made of the same flesh and blood. Or that they should be more than that - lovers, soulmates, something earth-shatteringly special. And Jensen's there, right in front of him, and Jensen, the real Jensen, is scared of him, despises him, doesn't want anything to do with him. On one hand, they are equal: on another, Jensen has always submitted to Jared, slipped out of his reach, walked the long way around to avoid him. At the same time, Jared's behaviour has always depended on his feedback - the feedback that he's decisively not given him. All of it has landed him in a place where he's had no other chance than to be himself, and right now, right there, Jensen realises Jared likely doesn't know who he is any better than Jensen does.

All he's ever been is a sum of his roles; the mask that became him.

"Like I strip you bare and you don't have anywhere to hide," Jensen finishes it up for him, and Jared's gaze jumps to him, struggling to focus; they stare at one another, Jensen calm in the wake of this revelation, and Jared fighting to win a fight against himself.

Finally, he softens up again, and his gaze falls back towards the bed. He doesn't say anything, but Jensen knows why - he doesn't have words for situations like this, for emotions or introspection. But it makes sense: he's never had the chance to feel like that before. He's never gotten so close to being himself, to having a real connection with someone as the person he could be, but he doesn't have the trust it takes to maintain that connection. As a result, it scares him; the proximity, the potential, the vulnerability all scare him, so he lashes out in self-defense. All this without having the means to understand, much less communicate, his own emotions.

Jensen closes his eyes and breathes out to stop himself from laughing. When he opens his eyes again, he suddenly feels exhausted, like the crushing weight of the night before is suddenly laid upon him and the few moments of rest that he could manage no longer sustain him. The euphoria he momentarily felt at solving this great mystery lifts as fast as it came, leaving him feeling strained, stretched beyond imagination - too small to bear the situation it leaves him in. He turns to look at Jared, who is still avoiding his gaze, and he's flooded with the urge to touch him again, to cross that distance between them and feel that he's still soft under his touch, still warm and human. Now that the clouds outside are breaking and the room bathes in pale white light, his fear has faded again, leaving him with nothing but the senseless attraction that he's felt for months, the same one that keeps him coming back to Jared over and over again. It's easy to love him like this, when he's defenseless, and when the light from the window highlights the gold in his eyes and brings out the moles on his skin, the soft frown over his features and the pout of his lips.

"You said," he speaks again, his voice quieter now, softer, "that you think Sam is who you could have been. That you hold onto him because he's the last thing that connects you to that person."

"You're paraphrasing like a tabloid journalist - slash Freudian shrink. But sure."

"Is that why you get so fucking angry whenever someone brings you out of character?" Jensen asks, ignoring the interruption.

For a moment, Jared thinks, and Jensen watches the thoughts pass over his features in subtle jerks of his brows, small shifts in his pose and in the way the tip of his tongue slides over his lower lip. Then he shrugs.

"I can't stand it when people don't let me do my fucking job," he says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

Jensen doesn't know what he expected; even if he was spot-on correct about it, Jared wouldn't be able to tell him that. He shrugs too, mirroring Jared's gesture as if to signal that he's dropping this pointless interrogation - it's enough, for now, that he's fairly sure he's right. His thoughts reorganize, prioritizing the tiredness of his body and mind above everything else, and he pulls himself forwards, lands a palm over Jared's shoulder and nudges him.

"Make space," he grunts, and Jared looks at him, his expression vaguely spaced-out and slow as he catches up with the meaning.

"You're -"

"I want to sleep," Jensen replies coolly, "since you kept me from doing it when I should have."

A small smile crosses Jared's lips. He sighs, puffs like a bored dog, and heaves his body clumsily, weakly, to the side. Jensen slips a hand into his nest and pulls out a fluffy pillow, sets it on the side of the bed and lands his palm in the middle of it, feeling it suck him up and surround him with a cool sense of softness.

"Get down," he tells Jared, eyes squinted slightly as if to add sharpness to his gaze.

"I don't fucking want to," Jared tells him; while he probably curses more than they do, Jensen imagines he's been taught well by his two young kids.

"I don't care that you don't want to," Jensen tells him, "The only way I'm ever going to sleep is if you're sleeping, too. If you think I'm just going to lay here unconscious while you can sober up from whatever it is that you've taken, you're a full one hundred percent wrong about it. Besides, you're tired. I can see it. Hell, the make-up team would have probably turned you away anyway if you'd showed up, I don't think bags like that can be hidden with anything. C'mon. Humour me."

There's a moment of hesitation, a battle of sorts, during which Jared stares rebelliously at the wall and Jensen at him. Then, perhaps after no more than ten still, stretched seconds, the man sighs again and stretches out, leaning his weight onto his arm that shakes under him so badly that Jensen expects him to just fall on his side at any moment. He doesn't, and eventually lands with his arm underneath a pillow, curling up much like he's shown Sam do when he sleeps; his other eye stays closed against the fabric, but the other peers at Jensen with that same hint of rebellion in it. Jensen ignores it, and finally settles down himself. He pretends it doesn't bother him, but when he closes his eyes, his body feels exposed and his heart picks up its pace again.

 _Like sleeping in a lion's den,_ his brain helpfully assists him to set the mood for the situation.

Grimacing, he pushes the thought back and acts as if it never existed. In a few minutes, he takes a look at Jared; the man breathes heavy and steady, already fast asleep, or at least so it seems to Jensen. Slowly, he moves his hand across the distance between them and touches the other's arm, and not a thing about him changes. He doesn't react, doesn't even try to shake the touch off, and quietly, Jensen slides out of the bed and back on his feet. He stays quiet as he crosses the trailer back into the kitchen where the water stain from the glass has dried out, but the pills are still there, and Jensen picks up the package.

Xanax.

 _1mg._ _Taken orally 1-3 times a day as needed._

He looks inside, grabs the corner of the blister pack peeking out and pulls at it just enough to see that the first two pills are missing. There's another slide inside, all of its contents untouched. A sound from outside startles him and the package falls back on the table; he stands there, exposed, for a moment listening both to the source of the sound like metal slamming against the concrete and for any sound indicating Jared moving again, but his ears catch no sign of either. Fingers cold, he pushes the package's contents back inside it and slides it into the same position he found it in. His eyes stay upon it for a moment, and he doesn't know what to think; this is a prescription medicine, and sure enough, it's prescribed to Jared himself. Still, despite it, a certain discomfort lingers inside Jensen as he turns and walks across the room again, half-intent on returning to the bedroom, half set on lingering somewhere a little further away from it. He's known people with Xanax before. Certainly people who had it prescribed, too - but more to feed an addiction rather than to cure an illness. Seeing it here brings back uncomfortable memories, but not quite as many as Jared's glassy eyes and the unsteadiness of his movements.

He swallows, closes his eyes and leans to the couch, taking a breath. Two pills missing isn't that many.

 _He's got a psychiatrist checking up on him when he takes them,_ Jensen reminds himself, eyes opening.

They're swollen and sting when he struggles to stay awake, and finally, the call of sleep wins him over. He returns to the bedroom, crawls silently onto the mattress and curls up, knees poking into the no man's land between himself and Jared, and as he closes his eyes, he realises he finally believes the other is truly asleep. There's no way he'd allow Jensen poking around his prescription medicines without interfering, wouldn't let Jensen form his own ideas about them. He'd have one story or another to explain them - to make himself the victim or the hero, whichever would suit him the best, and whichever he believed would have the strongest effect on Jensen in turn. Perhaps he'd be uncomfortable knowing that Jensen knew what he was taking. Or perhaps he'd be happy about it, finding one way or another to twist it to his advantage.

It doesn't really matter. In the end, despite himself, Jensen falls asleep feeling guilty.

 

* * *

 

Jared seems to wake up gradually. Jensen watches him, trying to recall the last time they woke up in the same bed but failing to recall much of it. For once, Jared's hair is a mess when he finally lifts his head up, unfocused eyes trying to make sense of Jensen's shape beside him, and Jensen takes the sight in, determined to remember more this time around. He can't quite picture Jared's shaved head in the morning light, but he does remember avoiding looking at it. Now, he watches the younger comb his fingers stiffly through his hair, an empty look on his face even as his eyes slowly move to the side from Jensen, catching somewhere around the corner of his pillow for a while before returning to him.

And Jensen's hard. He tries to tell himself it's got nothing to do with Jared, but he's never been a good liar: this drugged-up, sleepy version of the other man stirs something within him that he didn't pay attention to before. That he didn't, couldn't, spare to examine closer before feeling somewhat certain that the beast was weakened enough to pose him no threat. Like this, he's almost sure that he could pin Jared to the floor and not break sweat in the process. The trembling of his muscles, the imprecise way he moves, the slowness of his every breath and look and action - sleep hasn't driven it all from his system yet, hasn't really allowed him to recover from the weakening effects of the tranquilizer. Seeing him like that somehow reminds Jensen of control, of his own strength, and the potential within it all. It makes him feel strangely confident and for once examine Jared not as a threat but as... prey. As something he could take - something he surely deserves - perfectly within his reach.

The thought entertains Jensen for a moment as Jared rests his head back on his pillow, his eyes closing again. He could have sex with Jared. He's attracted, no doubt about that now. And there's no fear, just this sickening sensation of calm instead. Of certainty and power, like being drunk from too much wine. Jared's chest rises and falls as Jensen realises he's facing a crossroads here, one that seems largely theoretical, but holds the power to define who he is: what would he do with that power? Presented, as he is, with the chance to do whatever he wants with Jared - what would he want of him?

Revenge? To make him hurt like he's hurt Jensen? A shiver runs through Jensen's body as he considers it, and it tempts him. He feels the tug in the pit of his stomach, a sensation like hunger growing within him, forcing him to swallow and then part his lips to let a heavy breath through. He's powerful enough to take whatever he wants. He has the right - eye for an eye. A rush of anger and hatred boils into the mix within him, and he feels his features harden as he thinks back to it, to all that ache, to that disgust he's felt with him for months, the unbearable burn underneath his skin that he's tried to wash away to the point of bleeding, never managing to chase it far enough, never managing to feel _clean._ He visions Jared's wrists pinned against the pillows, bruising under his touch; imagines what his skin would feel between his teeth, what his flesh would feel like when penetrated with force, and what the sounds he'd make would be like. What it would sound like to have a broken _no_ fall from his lips, his head turned away and the same tears burning in his eyes as Jensen had felt in his own.

Picturing that breaks the spell, and a hollow sensation flushes over Jensen.

"You still want to fuck?" he asks, his own voice unfamiliar to him.  
It's like venom dripping from his lips, but Jared doesn't seem to notice as he opens his eyes and examines Jensen for a moment, brows lifting.

"What?" he finally manages to say, seeming disbelieving.

"I asked you if you still want to fuck," Jensen repeats, this time casual, even though his eyes are still dark and burning.

Jared's gaze moves down his body, then stops at his crotch, taking a moment to watch his cock pushing up against the fabric of his jeans. Then he looks up again, eyes squinting.  
"I'm not... I _can_ get it up, but I'm not really -"

"Doesn't matter," Jensen cuts his fumbling words, "I'll do the work. On one condition - this time, we do this my way."

"Kinky," Jared huffs with a crooked smile, "Didn't expect that from you."

Jensen's mouth twitches, turns to either a smirk or a grimace, but it's over so fast neither he nor Jared really get the chance to decide which. He moves over Jared in a single movement, planting a palm on his side so that his body traps Jared underneath him, and as his chest and mouth both press against Jared's, he realises he's never felt such an intoxicating mixture of lust and aggression, of desire and disgust. His skin burns again, flesh throbbing underneath it in a way that makes him want to beat himself until he's got swelling bruises flowering all over his body, but instead he pushes himself forwards again, moving his leg over Jared's hip so that he's got the man pinned underneath him in all counts that matter. His lips move from the other's mouth over onto his chin and from there down along his jaw to his neck, teeth nipping at him as his blood turns to boiling adrenaline. There's a tearing sound as he grips Jared's shirt and pulls it out from underneath him, and it surprises him, because he didn't think his grip was too forceful; the thought remains in his mind as his body seems to function on autopilot, stripping the shirt off Jared and casting it aside without stopping to check what he broke.

Jared's moving, too; his hips rise to push against Jensen's, and small sounds escapes his lips as Jensen manhandles him. He's tense, even though his body language still signals consent - he's wary, aware of his vulnerability, ready to switch from play to defense at any given moment. Not that he'd win that struggle. Jensen grabs his wrist and pins it above his head between the headboard and the pillow, rattling his cage, and when Jared draws breath as if to say something, his words are blocked by a forceful kiss.

"Not a word," Jensen hisses against his mouth.

Jared nods, his eyes closed. Jensen pulls back for a moment to view him and his heart is racing and he feels his throat closing up in a strange way, and he tries to swallow the growing bit inside it down before he has to stop and pay it attention, but it refuses to budge. He's shaking and cold, but a film of sweat covers his skin; the potential, the possibility and the conflict within him all scare him even though he's already made his choice.

He trails his fingertips down Jared's chest, through the hair over his chest all the way to his navel and the trail that begins from there, thicker and darker than Jensen remembered it. He's surprisingly good at it - submitting at command. His breaths hitch and tremble a little and Jensen can feel him partially hard against himself as he places more weight over his legs and sinks over Jared's hips. The muscles beneath the soft curve of Jared's lower abdomen tense and release again, and he lets a soft huff out, reaching his free hand towards Jensen's hip. For a moment, Jensen thinks of blocking him, showing him that he's in command here and Jared gets to do nothing without his permission, but he craves that touch, and lets it land anyway. It's not a possessive grip; in fact, it feels more like seeking reassurance, like _affection,_ as Jared's palm shapes around his hip. They stay there for a moment like that before Jensen pulls up.

"You like being filmed, huh?" he breathes out, looking around as he steps off the bed.

Jared watches him, his hair spread over the pillow underneath in a reverse halo. Picture-worthy, Jensen thinks.

"So where's your camera?"

Jared nods vaguely towards the rest of the trailer.  
"You really want to film this?" he asks with a terrified-sounding chuckle, "I mean - I'm drugged. You realise how that could look?"

"If someone saw it," Jensen grunts, "What, you planning on presenting evidence against me? Because boy, do I have some against you."

He feels dirty. Before Jared happened, he'd never spoken like that - never manipulated anyone. It isn't like him. None of this aggression, this darkness inside him is _him_.

"No, I just..."  
Jared suppresses a smile.  
"You really _are_ kinkier than I thought, Jen. I've got one on the shelf next to the couch on the right. Should have enough battery for whatever the hell you're up to. There's a memory card in my laptop, just pull it out and put it in and we're good to go."

Jensen gives him a dry chuckle, turns and walks away. He learns fast not to trust his legs; they're trembling and weak and he stumbles once, and the only thing he can think is that he's glad it happened out of Jared's sight. The camera is where he was promised he'd find it, a slightly worn-looking Nikon a little older than his own. He grabs it, turns it on; the battery shows at 85%. The memory card slips in as Jensen's already moving back towards the bedroom, his mind ringing empty as he concentrates on breathing. Jared doesn't say anything as he stops in front of him and starts recording.

The first moments are just like that: Jared's lying there, expression vaguely curious, his skin paler than usual with red blush visible over his cheeks. His hair's still spread on the pillow underneath him and his chest is rising and falling in short breaths, quicker and shallower than his regular breathing. Jensen pans the camera over his body, then steps closer, bringing it with him as he sits down on the edge of the bed. The video captures him move his hand up Jared's chest, and his heart races so loudly in his own that he fears that the microphone will catch the sound of it. The camera trembles slightly in its rhythm.

"You want this?" he asks breathlessly, moving the camera towards Jared's face.

The man nods, but seems uncertain. He's in strange territory, and it scares him. A smile breaches Jensen's self-guard again and spreads on his lips where he quickly suffocates it.

"You want to be filmed? You like it."

Another nod, this one even more uncertain than the one before. It gives Jensen a strange high. Jared has no idea what he's going to do, and yet he surrenders control anyway. Trusting that it's nothing he wouldn't want.

Like a naive fucking child.

Jensen adjusts the camera and reaches to brush his finger over Jared's lips. Dry, soft; he parts them to uncover the part glittering with wetness, drags his fingertip through it and then over the dry surface again. Then he retreats his finger and swallows, eyes turning from the camera to Jared with a piercing look. Having killed his natural smile, he forces another one on his face again.

"Think you'll like this tape?" he asks quietly, "Think you'll like watching what I'm gonna do to you?"

There's a flash of concern in Jared's expression. He catches up quickly. He's not nearly confident enough to not register how fragile he is here, nor is he stupid enough to not realise that Jensen's deliberately highlighting his powerlessness. It worries him.

 _Good,_ Jensen thinks.  
Maybe it'll make him think.

"What do you _think_ I'm going to do to you?" Jensen asks him, his voice soft and his fingers tracing Jared's collarbone now just out of the camera's view.

He watches Jared think, realise he doesn't have a clue. It seems to have already dawned to him that whatever it is, it isn't what he thought it was going to be.

"Tell me," he finally breathes out, his voice dead in his throat and his eyes sharp and decidedly green in the light that pours into the bedroom.

Jensen wonders if the colour will show that way on the video. If it'll be as deceivingly beautiful and deep as it appears in real life with gold in the centre and blue and green intertwining not to a middle tone but to a colour that is both at once. He's always believed that the eyes do betray the soul beneath them, but Jared's shaken his belief. How could someone so cruel and cold have such beautiful eyes if that is all there is behind them?

The camera's stuck recording each and every movement of Jared's eyes, the flash of gold as he glances towards the window and the settled glow of a dewy meadow in the morning as he looks back again.

"Jen?" he calls with a crooked smile, "Tell me."

Jensen lowers the camera and shakes his head. He places it on the bedside table and tries to aim it so that it'll capture the whole scene, but his hands are shaking, and it's difficult to find the right angle. He concentrates on it until his breathing relaxes again, until the aching tension in his muscles is gone. Then he clears his throat and turns back to Jared, ignoring his curious gaze and watching his own hand instead as he runs it down his body, fingers trailing through the hair on his belly again until they meet with the collar of his pants. He hesitates for a second before crossing it, palm smoothly climbing the bump in the front and cupping it.

Still not completely erect, he finds out as his fingers bend around the shape and massage it carefully, mapping out the shape of the other's cock and feeling the slide of his foreskin over the solid, warm shaft and the pronounced glans. Jared spreads his legs a little, allowing his hand to move between them: he presses it against his sac and rubs at it gently before lifting his hand and running it down the man's inner thigh, coaxing his legs to spread some more.

"You like topping," he says absently, and Jared lets out an indecisive sound, what Jensen expects to be his response caught in the middle of a soft moan as his palm returns to stroke his cock through the fabric of his sweatpants again, "That's your - comfort zone, isn't it. To be in control. You get a kick out of it or something. So if you think that's where this is headed, you're wrong."

"Jen -"

"Shh."  
The hissing sound is as soft as Jensen's voice, almost absent.  
"My way, Jared. You promised."

Jared swallows, but to Jensen's surprise, he shuts up. It feels good.

"I liked the way you felt around my cock that one time, you know."  
He breathes out a heavy, shaky little breath and feels himself shudder. He's still doing this mostly to scare Jared, but the more he talks, the more he realises how good it feels to him: how powerful it makes him feel to reinforce his control over the other man, to see him submit so perfectly to him. He didn't really expect this to go over so easily.

Maybe the fight's still in there somewhere, and he just hasn't gotten to it yet. Granted, he's being careful about it. He's not sure for whose benefit.

"Tight and wet with your whole body gripping onto me like your life depended on that fuck."  
His heart skips a beath and he lets out a small gasp, lips parted, and his cock twitches against his pants.  
"And you were so - _hesitant_ to let it happen in the first place. Like a scared fucking virgin, Jared. Needy, practically begging to be fucked, but holding back and trying to fight it. You wanted it really badly, though. So bad that in the end the rest didn't matter. You just wanted to ride me, and it didn't matter that it was being filmed, either. Didn't matter that someone might see you take a cock. You _needed_ it."

He draws a sharp breath in and lets it out as a breathless laugh, his hand still lazily stroking Jared's length that has grown twice as hard in the span of his little speech. It seems to shake the younger somehow, the conflict visible on his face, the blush deepening and a hint of defensive frustration in his expression.

"So maybe it's not that you're really into topping. Maybe you're actually just looking to get fucked, but you're too damn fucking proud to admit that you need it. I thought maybe telling you to shut the fuck up and take it would make it easier for you, you know. If you can't complain, you can just let go and let it happen. Don't wanna hear a word from you, alright? Just be the fucking slut you want to be, the one you're so fucking desperately trying to turn me into. You know what, Jared?"

He leans forwards, his hands taking a firm hold of Jared's pants as he presses his mouth against his ear, feeling him tense up underneath him.

"I'm not your slut," he breathes into him, "but you're about to become mine."

The pants slide down Jared's narrow hips with ease, crawling lazily over his cock and snapping against his thighs underneath it. Jensen feels the length bounce against him, feels its heat press into his side, and his teeth nip at Jared's ear before he moves back, undressing him.

"Like that thought, hm?"

Jensen drags off his own shirt, tosses it off on the floor somewhere near Jared's. He runs his palm over his own cock, watching Jared as he rests there, hand over his stomach where it landed when he moved to grab his cock but seemed to realise Jensen hadn't given him the permission to touch himself. Jensen isn't sure if he would have told Jared _not_ to, but it amuses him that the thought clearly occurred to Jared.

"So," Jensen carries on, his fist still rubbing through his pants sending flashes of pleasure rushing through his spine, "Where's your lube?"

"Let me -"

" _Where_ is your lube?" Jensen cuts him off, repeating the question in a pressing voice.

Jared closes his eyes and breathes. Jensen knows how he feels - how much he hates people talking over him. An exciting shiver of fear rushes through Jensen's gut and he finds himself smiling again.

"In the drawer. Jensen."

Jensen leans towards the bedside table, acknowledging the other calling his name only by a vaguely interested sound as he drags the drawer open and reaches for the tube there.

"Let me do it."

Jensen grants him a quick, bored glance, picks up the lube and slams the drawer shut again.  
"That something you need or just you thinking I can't do it right?" he asks.

Jared stays quiet for a moment, trying to overcome some silent struggle within. Then he grimaces.  
"Just - let me."

_So it's the former, I guess._

Jensen shrugs. He grabs Jared's hand from his stomach and pulls it over, wets his fingers with the gel and lets him go. He watches him move his hand hesitantly between his legs - the thought of this seems to instill enough conflict in him to work exactly as Jensen wants it to. He wants it to be uncomfortable, to push him; he wants Jared to feel exactly as he's felt before. Lost and scared and powerless, and never able to forget it. The awareness of it all is like torture, more so than anything else in the situation could be. And yet, there's a certain high in it. In letting go - in resting one's life in another's hands, never knowing how those hands will treat it, whether it'll be respected or discarded as worthless.

His hand now moves to stroke Jared's thigh again as he watches the man circle his fingertip over his exposed hole. The view is intoxicating and there's a not entirely too small part of Jensen that wants to slap Jared's hand off and just _take_ him, make him scream, but he discards that animalistic instinct and settles to breathe, decisive to let this play out. Jared's eyes are closed, perhaps out of shame or else because he's relishing the thought of being watched: it's impossible to tell, and maybe it's a little bit of both. Jensen knows well that most of the time, he wouldn't say no to an audience. Now, however, he's sure that he's driven the other into a space where it can't be quite that simple - and, even before he ever came here, the mirror opposite of the bed had already been covered. He lets his eyes turn towards the camera and as he watches the movement of Jared's hand between his legs on the screen, he feels distant from the situation for a moment, as if the body he's viewing on the camera's flipscreen is someone else's. Like this is just a porn film, not his life; like that person looking back at him from the camera is someone else, whom he isn't responsible for. Someone he doesn't know.

His hand moves over Jared's, and the man makes a surprised little sound, his eyes pressing closed more tightly. Jensen's finger moves over Jared's and he presses the tip down, and Jared complies; his finger sinks into his hole and the muscle flutters around it, and Jensen feels it against his own skin, swallowing down the urge to push inside with Jared. Instead, he reaches to grab the other's cock, giving it a few strokes as he watches Jared play with his ass in a seemingly tense, nervous manner.

"Lookin' good," he tells him, eyes fixed upon the sight of the man's first digit disappearing into his body, "You can take a little more than that, can't you?"

Jared nods; he pushes his finger further in, his flesh swallowing his finger up to the second joint. Then he pulls it out a little, and Jensen sees his finger bend into a hook to rub at the nerves on the inside - Jared moves his hand in slow, small movements, exploring his body to find the angle that would feel the best for him. Jensen slows his own fist down over his cock, but keeps stroking it. The glans is heavy and wet and brilliantly flushed, and, once he can tear his eyes off the sight of Jared fingering himself, he watches it disappear into his fist a few times, finding that sight almost as captivating as the one offered to him just so many inches below it.

After a minute or so, Jared presses in a second finger. It stretches his hole and suddenly Jensen feels it's quite hard for him to swallow; his fist grows tighter around Jared's cock and his rhythm turns erratic for a while before he can pull himself together again. He lets Jared ease into it for a moment before letting go and reaching for the camera again. From the corner of his vision he sees Jared open his eyes and aim them suspiciously at the camera.

"Not a word," Jensen reminds him casually as he brings the camera between his legs.

For a moment, Jared's hand is still. Then, one at a time, he starts moving his fingers again, evidently deciding that the camera's presence isn't a dealbreaker yet. Jensen zooms into them, watching one exit the man's hole and draw a circle around the tight muscle before entering again, and he's almost certain his own heavy breathing can be heard on the film.

He makes sure that Jared closes his eyes before he makes his next move, bringing his free hand down over Jared's again. He moves his index finger over those that Jared has buried inside himself, and at first he simply lets it stay there or caresses his working fingers absently with his own, but soon enough he's already moved to touching his entrance, feeling the pronounced, slippery texture of his hole, and even as he feels more than sees Jared watching him suspiciously, he can hear how the man's breathing has turned heavier and faster, too. He doesn't ask for permission before slipping his fingertip in. Jared's legs, still spread on Jensen's both sides, twitch, threatening to close up, but then stop mid-movement. He's tense, and Jensen wants to look at him, see his expression, but he's decisive to appear as if he doesn't give a damn; instead, he fucks Jared's opening with his fingertip, gathering lube from both his fingers and the wet flesh that surrounds him before moving in deeper. A small sound escapes the other and Jared's right leg falls over towards the other, closing up, but Jensen doesn't react to it - in a moment, he feels Jared's fingers twitch beside his own, and then slide out entirely. They stop to rest over his finger as he moves it in and out of the man's body, carelessly and almost as if he hasn't even noticed the hesitation in Jared's nonverbal language.

"Still so fucking tight," he lets him know as he leans away again, his finger stopping as he places the camera back on the table and picks up the lube instead.

He pulls out to wet his fingers, still avoiding Jared's gaze, and pushes two inside him: Jared's hips jump at the touch, buck against him and cause his fingers to sink deeper than he would have pushed them on his own. A low purring sound nests inside his throat as he curves his fingers up and starts moving them, trying to find that small bump from inside Jared but his pose doesn't allow either of them that luxury; his insides are all soft and plush against Jensen's touch with no landmarks to guide him forwards. It doesn't matter much; Jensen watches as Jared's hand departs from on top of his and moves cautiously up over his own cock, and when Jensen doesn't tell him to stop, he fists up and starts stroking it to the rhythm of Jensen's fingers inside him.

"You like oral?" Jensen asks him in a voice like he's asking him how his weekend was.

He's never given oral to a man. Of any kind, really. By now, he's _gotten_ it quite a lot - Jared's good with his mouth. He's never blown Jensen, but he's rimmed him often enough for Jensen to expect it whenever he seems to be in a better mood; it's one of the things they both seem to enjoy equally. However, other than that, oral sex has never really been a part of how they've slept together. Not that Jensen hasn't thought of it. He's thought about it a lot, part of it fearful, part of it him expecting Jared to bring it in and force him to choke on his cock, but he's never done so, and perhaps more than anything that has made Jensen curious about it. It seems like an obvious violation that Jared should have taken advantage of, yet he's never so much as implied it.

 _Maybe he's afraid you'll bite him - and not for nothing,_ Jensen thinks as he waits for an answer, his eyes finally moving towards Jared's again but the man is avoiding his gaze.  
In fact, he has his arm over his eyes, and the sight of it makes something inside Jensen freeze. He stops moving, and in the following moments the only thing that does move in the room is Jared's own fist as it slowly runs through his length over and over again in a slow manner.

"Jay?"

The arm lifts, and Jared peers at him with a tired look.  
"I don't know," he finally answers.

It seems to be his go-to for subjects he doesn't like to talk about.

Jensen has to bite his tongue to not ask him if he's alright. His whole point was for him to not be alright - why does he care so fucking much when it's obvious that his plan is working?

Slowly, he retreats his fingers. He grips Jared's leg, the one crossed over his crotch, and pushes it aside: it's limp and doesn't resist, and Jensen leans forwards, settling between the man's legs and over his body. Jared's arm falls back over his eyes when Jensen reaches for him, takes a hold of it and pulls. Now there's resistance, but he doesn't let it stop him; he wrestles the arm off and presses his hand over its wrist to make sure it doesn't go back where it doesn't belong.

"Talk to me," he says quietly, so quietly that the camera won't catch the sound of it.

Jared looks away for a moment, and Jensen can feel him shiver underneath him.

"You want me to turn the camera off?"

After a small pause, Jared shakes his head. He turns to look at Jensen.

"You want to blow me?" he asks, ignoring the fact that the conversation has changed subject.

Jensen hesitates.  
"I asked you if you liked it."

"And I told you I don't know. Now I'm asking you if you want to do it."

"I was considering it, yeah."

"Then do it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

There's something else there, but Jensen doesn't know how to dig for it, and Jared, as usual, doesn't seem to have the words. Slowly, Jensen backs off again, settles on his knees between Jared's feet and he watches him for a moment, unsure if he can move on despite the lingering hesitance in Jared's aura.

Eventually, he decides he can't.

"You alright?" he finally asks, his palms moving over Jared's upper thighs and resting there, warm and flat over his cool skin.

"What, you suddenly want to talk feelings?" Jared scoffs in an annoyed tone, "Remember when I told you I don't have any?"

He's lying.

And he's scared.

Jensen closes his eyes and swallows. He wants to laugh. He doesn't have what it takes for revenge. He never did. All that anger is gone, and all he wants to do is just be fucking _good_ to this wreck of a man beside him. A senseless flood of affection prickles at his guts like a blanket of needles.

"No," he admits, "I don't want to talk feelings."  
He leans forwards again, takes a grip of Jared's cock still resting fat and heavy against his body.  
"Tell me when you've figured out if you like this or not."

It can't be that hard to suck a dick. Jensen doesn't quite know what to expect when he presses his mouth against the tip and lets it slip between his lips, but it feels much bigger than he thought it would be. Much bigger than anything he's used to having in his mouth, anyway. And the taste is - _earthy_ would be giving it too much credit, but it's as heavy as the feel of the shaft in his hand, and salty, and musky, and he's entirely too certain it's not the best thing he's ever had the pleasure of entertaining his tongue with. He's used to the way girls taste, but it's not quite like that; the closest he's ever gotten to tasting this was tasting his own come when a past girlfriend decided it'd be hot to see him suck it off her fingers. But even then it wasn't attached to a thick, fleshy organ blocking his entire mouth, and before he can really work through the experience, he's pulling back already, a thick string of saliva and precome stretching between his lower lip and the cock's head. He swallows and tries to relax to try again; when he glances up, Jared's got his damn arm over his eyes again. There's something about the gesture that makes Jensen's stomach drop, something that screams dissociation and pain, and he wants to shake Jared to get him out of it, knowing full well that there's no one else to blame but himself for what he's seeing. That the reaction is not only understandable but something he should have expected, and it burns at him, knowing that the only thing he can do is either to give up or push forwards.

Jared won't talk. If he leaves now, they'll never speak about this again. And maybe he'll learn from it. Maybe Jensen gets what he wanted, maybe he manages to teach some twisted lesson to the other man, but what the fuck does he know, really?

Carefully, he reaches over and takes Jared's hand, then bows down and lets his cock slip back in his mouth. This time, it seems to fit in a little bit better - his mouth's prepared for the size, for the taste, and he molds his tongue and throat around the head and the inch or two that he manages to fit in with it. He's got no idea how well he's doing, but he's damn well doing his best, sucking and letting his tongue press up and rub against the cock's shape, trying to imitate the best blowjobs he's ever had performed on himself, even though he knows he's nothing in comparison to those. Jared's hand in his remains limp, but Jensen listens to every breath he draws, takes in every twitch and shift in his body, every move of every muscle, and tries to judge from those how to get the response he's after. And at the very least he's not going soft in his mouth, and Jensen's not getting his teeth caught in the sensitive skin all that often either. His mouth grows numb with friction and spit coats his lips and the area surrounding them, but little by little he dares to take more in, and eventually - _finally_ \- Jared's fingers bend around the hand holding his and grip it tight as a soft moan escapes his mouth. Jensen responds to it with one of his own, unintentionally, his voice resonating in the organ he's got his tongue against, and it makes Jared's breath hitch and his hips jerk up a little. His hand parts with Jensen's almost as soon as it began to hold it back, moving erratically into his hair instead, pushing him down but not quite as forcefully as Jensen expected. He doesn't even have to stop and tell him off for it; it's merely a suggestion, or perhaps a compliment. Whatever it is, it can only mean one thing: he's getting _something_ right.

"Jen - _Jen._ "

"Mm?"  
It's impossible to make more of a sound than that. Yet again, the voice prompts another shaky groan from Jared, and it takes a moment for him to recover enough to speak again.

"You - your fingers - in? _Fuck._ "

Jensen swallows around the cock in his mouth to drown a mixture of a laugh and a choked cough. Yep, he's nailing it. He moves his hand down Jared's body again, fingertips moving between his legs to find that slick, relaxed hole they left only a few moments earlier. When he finds it, the lube's still as wet as ever and the flesh perhaps hotter than he remembered it being, and he gives it a while to just play with the rim of it, teasing at the sensitive nerves he knows are there and respond quite nicely to a mouth around a cock. Jared's hips buck up again and he gasps for air, his breath sharp when he manages to catch it again, and he trembles, moaning, as Jensen pushes his fingers in and bends them against his flesh. He forces his head down a little bit further, feeling the tip of Jared's cock push at the back of his mouth, and just before the gag reflex kicks in he draws back again, then sinks down, draws up and sinks down once more. The other's fingers bend into his short hair, a little more force in the way they push down, but Jensen ignores it still: as long as Jared won't hold him down when he wants to back up, he'll let him do whatever pleases him. God, he's just happy the pain is gone from his body language. Something in Jensen still seems to be picking it up, but he's not sure if sex is ever completely painless for Jared; it's always been an undertone in the way they've fucked, and even though Jensen's been the recipient of it, its source has always been Jared. Maybe he hasn't been the one hurting, but if Jensen has learned a single thing from the past fifteen minutes, it's that the last thing he wants is to be the source of anyone else's suffering.

He pulls back, panting, and Jared's hand slides over the back of his neck, thumb and index finger moving in something of a caress. Jensen examines the other's features, his closed eyes and flaring nostrils and parted, wet lips, and he smirks, sighing.

"Liking it yet?" he asks, and the hoarse, used sound of his voice surprises him.

Jared nods slightly, making an incoherent noise.

"Good."

And down he goes again. Third time seems to be the charm, Jensen realises; he really _is_ starting to get this whole thing. He knows now how to prompt those delicious damn sounds from Jared, and the man seems to be dropping them for him at an increasing pace anyway. He sucks, licks and drags his mouth over the other's cock, the only source of discomfort being the increasing amount of precome dripping and stretching over the back of his tongue. He doesn't quite know to expect it, and doesn't know how to deal with it, but he knows that based on this experience, he really doesn't want to take a load up his throat. So he backs off, finally, prolonging the way he retreats and, once Jared's cock has fallen out of his mouth heavy and wet and slippery and _hot_ , he kisses the tip and licks around it once more for good measure, a small self-satisfied grin on his face.

Damn. He's good at this. He's really, actually _good_ at this.

Jared's hand crosses through Jensen's hair once more before falling on the bed. He opens his eyes, misty and unfocused, and scans the ceiling while catching his breath; Jensen moves his fingers in and out of him almost lazily, just enough to remind him they're still there, and to avoid giving him a moment of rest. He dwells on that thought, and imagines how it must feel to have his nerves constantly stimulated like that. Even now that his cock is untouched, he's not going to have any time to really relax and gather himself from the experience.

That is the kind of control that Jensen feels to be more like what he really wants to have. Not the power to hurt, but the power to keep Jared exactly and precisely where he wants him: on his back, panting, fingernails grinding against the sheets.

He looks damn fine like that.

_Fuck._

"Jesus, Jensen..." Jared mutters, his hips shifting, half bucking into Jensen's touch and half adjusting as if to escape from him.

He fails on both accounts, managing only to press Jensen's fingers a little deeper and move his wrist into an uncomfortable pose: Jensen slides them out one by one, drags his fingertip around the loose, throbbing entrance and then plants his palm into the mattress, leaning forwards to get on level with Jared's eyes. He looks at him and takes a moment to appreciate the comfortable calm that has replaced the earlier aggression in him. It's ridiculous how satisfied and confident he suddenly feels. Jared's got his hands tied by the lingering effects of his medication, and he's quite a good boy like this; their eyes meet, and Jared moves up to press his hips against Jensen's, begging.

"You wanna get fucked?" Jensen asks him in an amused tone, undoing his jeans as he speaks and kicking them down his legs as far as he can get them without help.

Jared closes his eyes and nods quickly as if to hide the gesture. Jensen presses his finger, one not stained by lube, over his lips and drags down to see a glimpse of his teeth underneath.

"Asked you a question, you know," he tells him in a fake-gentle tone, glimpsing at the camera.

"Yeah," Jared says in a trembling tone.

"Yeah, I did. Mm. And what would you answer?"

He can see the blush on the other's cheeks deepen. It's incredible, spreading all the way to the tips of his ears.

"You don't seem to like these games as much when the joke's on you, pretty boy," Jensen huffs, gripping his chin, and then says in a rough voice; "Look at me."

Jared swallows, his eyes closing up tight before he finally opens them again. The breath he lets out sounds terrified, held-back and high in tone.

"Do you want to get fucked?" Jensen asks him again, brows raising expectingly.

"Yes," Jared mutters.

"What?"

"I want to get fucking fucked, Jensen, Jesus."

"Just Jensen, thanks. And boy, do I know you want to get fucked. Think there's one person on earth who doesn't know that yet? Your cock's all swollen and fat from getting sucked. You're offering your ass to me like you're in heat. Never heard you moan like a little whore before either. Fuck, you're a needy little shit, aren't you."

Jared closes his eyes again, and he breathes quietly for a while before his lips shape up an inaudible word or two. Jensen watches him, wondering if he went a little too far with the teasing; he drags his thumb across Jared's chin, waiting.  
"Yeah?" he asks when no words fall out.

"D'ya..." Jared starts, but the words die to a shudder.

"C'mon," Jensen huffs, pressing a kiss over his lips.  
He doesn't know why he does it, but fuck, he loves this guy like this. He might hate him most the time, but like this... yeah. It's different.

"Do you... d'you really - like..."

"Fuck, Jared. Come on."

A hesitant smile crosses Jared's lips and he opens his eyes, but Jensen's surprised to see tears lining them. They wet his lashes into clumps but refuse to fall out.

"D'you think I have any worth, Jensen? Like this?"

Jensen closes his eyes.  
"It's a fucking game, Jared," he mutters, but leans down and nips at his ear before carrying on.  
"'Course you have worth, you asshole. 'f course you matter. Like this. Pinned underneath me, horny as fuck, high as fuck, you have worth."

"You - care?"

"Of fucking course I care."  
Jensen pulls back, watches the other with a raised brow.  
"What, you wanna tap out?"

Jared chuckles and shakes his head.  
"No," he says, "Just checking the rules."

"Good."

"So, huh."

"Huh what?"

"I'm a needy, horny little whore. Isn't that where we left off?"

Jensen chokes a laugh.  
"Pretty much, yeah."

"So - I want you to fuck me real hard, alright?"

"Gotcha."

 _Don't feel a thing._ Jensen's eyes linger over Jared for a moment before he forces himself up on his knees and reaches for the lube to wet his cock with. What, is this the way to make someone who is two inches from being diagnosed with fucking sociopathy to suddenly get in touch with his emotions? He should be granted a therapy license for his troubles.

"Last time," he says in a half-hearted tone as he caps the lube and spreads a good amount over his already lube-stained palm, "you got to set the pace. Got to decide how you're fucked. This time's a little different, yeah? I set the pace. Fuck you the way I wanna fuck you. Make you come the way I want you to come. That make you nervous?"

Jared scoffs, but his eyes close again and he breathes in that even, deep manner that tells Jensen he's struggling with _something._ Good.

"Gonna make you scream, you know. Make you mine."

This time, Jensen catches him shiver. The corner of his mouth tugs up as he leans back between Jared's legs, digs a finger inside him to make sure he's all ready and prepared for this - as if there was room for doubt anymore - and trails it over the texture of his rim again, pushing down just a little bit to make him feel that stretch. The muscle puts up a fight, irritated from the unnatural tug on it, and Jensen maps up its shape before putting in another finger and scissoring away until the resistance falls apart. Jared lets out a soft sound, tucks up his chin with his mouth falling open: he looks positively blissful at the touch, and seeing that makes Jensen shake with expectation. He guides his cock over the other man's hole and, fuck, well; he's never had it quite like this. Never had the power to choose when and how to enter, not with a guy. Jared's his only one, and...

"Fuck, you feel so good. So slick and open and... _fuck._ "

He slides his dick over the other's hole, feeling it sink just half an inch into his body, and then does it again just to make sense of the sensation. It makes his cock twitch and he wishes he had a fucking condom on, just for the tight ring at the base that'd keep him from coming right there and then. It takes a moment for him to be absolutely certain he _won't_ orgasm the moment he sinks into Jared, but when he's certain again, he moves forwards with his whole body, penetrating the man gently in a long, fluid movement. He doesn't go far in, both for his own sake and Jared's; instead, he runs his palm over Jared's cheek, feeling the rough stubble against his skin, and breathes for a moment while watching tension increase and release again in the other's body.

He doesn't seem to be in any pain: his ass barely makes an effort to recognise something thrusting inside it, and Jensen knows from experience that when it hurts, the muscles clamp right the fuck down to stop it. Still, he tenses up again when Jensen keeps moving in, and he leans down to kiss Jared's chest and stomach to make it easier for him, to reassure him that this is alright, that despite what he's saying, he's not going to be rough and he's not going to make it hurt. He wants easy access and a long, good fuck the way he's used to having it - the way he _likes_ it, which is the opposite of what Jared's ever given him. Slow, deep and sensual.

Perhaps out of all tortures in the world, that just happens to be the one that will make Jared suffer the worst.

"You good, baby?" he asks, half-teasing, half-careful.

The answer he gets is a beastly snarl, and it makes him laugh.

"Fair enough."

He presses in, length sinking up to the last third, and pulls right back a couple only to thrust them back in again. He keeps up the rhythm, but his movements are just as small, giving the man underneath him the chance to get used to being fucked before starting the deeper, longer movements.

"Good," he breathes out when he lands his whole shaft in, feeling his pubic bone press against Jared's body, "That's good. Real good. All tight and hot for me, aren't you. How long you wanted this and just didn't have the words to ask?"

Another snarl, this one a little quieter and a little bit more desperate.  
"Just fuck me, Jen."

"Shh," Jensen huffs, brushing a thumb over Jared's lips, "Take it like I give it to you, or I'm walking out the door and leaving you here all stretched open and dripping."

It seems to throw Jared off, and instead of further words, Jensen gets him lifting his hips and rubbing them against him. With an amused huff, he brings both his hands down and takes a good, firm grip of the man's hip on both sides, forcing it back down onto the bed.

"No cheating," he purrs and takes the freedom to move a little bit faster with the grip and hold he's got going.

It seems to please Jared a lot: the man archs his back and moans, eyes fluttering and throat exposed. Jensen uses the opportunity and presses his lips onto that sensitive skin, sucking at it, kissing and licking it; he's leaving a mark and he loves the thought of it.

"Just the way I want it, Jay. That's the deal you agreed to."

"You're not fucking," Jared grunts, the words topped with a needy gasp, "You're playing around."

"That," Jensen huffs, "or you've never been fucked properly and have no idea what it means. Just give up, baby, you're not going to get out of this any easier no matter how much you whine about it. My advice? Just lie the fuck down and enjoy the ride."

" _Baby_ ," Jared mouths with mocking contempt, throws his head to the side and lets out a huff.  
Still, there's defeat in him, and Jensen rocks into him at a steady, gentle pace, watching the frustration on his face and getting about as much pleasure out of seeing it as from the wet friction between their bodies and the  
sensation of the younger's body tightening and throbbing around his cock.  
"Sound like my fucking wife."

"She call you that? Baby?" Jensen asks, pulling Jared's hips over his thighs and sitting back on the bed.

Jared's still looking away when Jensen resumes the rhythm, and for a while, he doesn't say anything, just nods. His mouth's closed, breath coming out heavy through his nostrils only, and he's like an upset kid, decisive not to grant Jensen the honour of looking anywhere near him. Still, it seems he does like it - does like being fucked, or at least his muscles are holding up just the right amount of tension, gripping Jensen's dick and holding it firmly inside him, and his cock is still leaking with precome that's now dripping onto his abdomen.

He's so close, but Jensen's not giving him enough to let him come yet. The thought excites Jensen, and he thrusts into Jared harder a few times to ride that wave out. A wet sound emerges between them, skin on skin, as Jensen's hip rocks onto Jared's wet thighs and ass; he looks down, watches his dick sink into his body, marking the redness surrounding Jared's hole and the blush that has risen everywhere their bodies come together. There are red marks even underneath Jensen's fingers as he moves his other hand up again, leaning it into the mattress beside Jared's side and placing his weight onto it to get into a better position. His hips slap against Jared's at a steady pace, and small, throaty sounds escape the other again. When Jensen looks up, he's closed his eyes and his lips are parting, making way for the moans.

"You mind if she sees this?" Jared asks between his shaky breaths, and his lips move so little that both the words and the source of them confuse Jensen for a while so much that he stops moving altogether, cock buried deep inside Jared's ass.

"What?"

The other peers at him, barely bothering to open one eye.

"You mind if she sees this video? I bet she'd love it," Jared repeats.

"Your - what, your _wife?_ "

"Yeah."

"Yes," Jensen chokes, "I fucking mind. You're not - you're not _serious_."

Jared smiles.  
"I am, though."

Jensen thrusts into him and brings his palm over Jared's neck, spreads his fingers around it and presses them against his carotid. His pulse is satisfyingly quick and heavy, easy to locate, and it matches the throbbing of his body around Jensen's cock. There's a sense of revenge-fucking in the way he fucks Jared for the next twenty, thirty seconds, as if to punish him for even suggesting that - but it rings in his mind, and it's at least caught his interest, if nothing else.

"Why the fuck would she want to see this?" he hisses then, leaning over Jared to get closer to him, hips quickly moving against his but now only in small, impatient movements.

The thought is... oddly arousing.

"Because she's never seen - ugh - she's never seen me taken. She doesn't know what we do. She doesn't know what you do _to me,_ Jen. And I know if she saw... she'd love it. Love how you - mm - take me apart."

"You guys have the most fucked up," Jensen groans, thrusting deep and shuddering, "twisted fucking relationship, Jay."

"Mm. We make it work."  
Jared licks his lips, now with both half-lidded eyes open and peering at Jensen. His pupils are wide with endorphines and whatever the hell else; at this point, the only thing Jensen cares about is the pleasure reflecting in them.  
"So, is that a yes?"

Jensen groans again and closes his eyes. He fucks Jared harder for a moment, fingers twisting into his hair in a way that makes Jared almost pull his hand away - his fingers grab Jensen's wrist painfully hard, but it seems that he remembers what he's risking at last moment, and he doesn't pull. When his grip falls apart, Jensen moves his hand onto his shoulder and leans onto him, hoping it hurts.

"Yes," he hisses then, "Show your fucking wife what I do to you when she's not looking. Show her what a complete fucking slut you are, with your legs spread for another man. Make her fucking watch if that's what gets her off."

A long, painfully aroused whimper escapes Jared; a sound that ends in a breathless little laugh and another buck of his restricted hips.

"That's one way to say hi to your ex-coworker," Jared mumbles, his hand reaching up to Jensen's hair again, guiding him forwards as Jensen bucks back against him.

"You like that thought?" Jensen asks him, breathless, quite certain he's not going to last much longer with this unexpected twist, "Last time, you made so fucking sure _no one_ will see you with my cock up your ass. That turn you on now?"

"Mm."

"Say it."

"Fuck, Jensen."

"Just fucking own it, Jay."

"Fine."  
Jared looks him directly in the eyes, breath so heavy Jensen feels it against his collarbones.  
"I want her to see you fuck me. I want to be seen. I want people to _know_."

"That you're a fucking slut?"

"Whatever the fuck you say, Jen."

Jensen chuckles faintly, leans his forehead down until it touches Jared's chest, and fucks into him until all he hears are the choked moans the man's letting out, and all he feels is his wet heat and the feel of his nails running down his neck and his shoulder blades, and he comes with his hips slamming against the other man's, completely lost and blind and deaf to anything that isn't Jared. Somewhere very close to him, as if as a  _part_ of him, he feels his orgasm pass through him and ignite something inside Jared. His entire world seems to tense with the other man, and between them, he can feel Jared's warm release wet both their stomachs in a few intense waves of pleasure that leave him gasping just as it left Jensen only seconds before.

 

* * *

 

Vancouver rain is reliable. It drowns out the sunshine and pitter-patters down at the roof above them as they lie in a heap, Jensen curled around Jared's shape with Jared's fingers tugging and rubbing at his scalp, their legs tangled and bodies covered with sweat. He watches with glassed-over eyes as Jared reaches towards the camera with a shaky hand, lays his finger over the record button and watches the lens for a moment, mouthing something in its direction, and finally presses it and turns off the power. Everything else is slowly coming back: the traffic somewhere further away, the sounds and noises of the studios. He can hear his phone vibrating in his discarded pants, but the possibility of getting up and answering it doesn't even register in his mind. Instead, he closes his eyes, tired and limp and heavy-feeling. Jared yawns, and when Jensen peers at him, his eyes are closed again and he looks quite ready to fall asleep.

"You don't have monopoly over rape, you know that, right, Jay?" Jensen asks him quietly, unsure why the subject is so fucking important to breach right now.

Jared turns slowly towards him, and the pinkness surrounding his eyes and blushing the tip of his nose and the surrounding of his mouth is ridiculous. Jensen wants to kiss him, but he doesn't have what it takes to get up.

"I should say I'm sorry about that," Jared says thoughtfully, "but you know as well as I do that - I wouldn't really mean it."

"Mm."  
Jensen closes his eyes again, vaguely annoyed.  
"Guess that shouldn't surprise me."

"Does it?"

"No. But I want something, Jay."

Jared stays quiet. They breath silently for such a long while that Jensen fears he'll fall asleep if he doesn't press on.

"I want _something_ , Jay. If you can't give me an apology, then give me a fucking explanation. Anything," he pushes, and the frustration sounds clearly from his weary voice.

"Do we really have to do this right now?" Jared asks him from the corner of his mouth, sounding sleepy.

"Yeah. And it's really because this is the only time you'll ever talk straight with me, so don't go blaming me for it either."

Jared sighs. He shifts, and when Jensen looks, he's watching the ceiling again, although his eyes do briefly visit Jensen's in a rather serious manner.  
"What do you wanna hear? That I've been raped, too? You want me to spell it out for you like in a spelling bee?"

Jensen ignores the taunt.  
"When?" he asks instead.  
He doesn't ask _who_ , he doesn't want to know. He just can't fit it in his head. 6'4" of pure muscle and mean spirits. Who the fuck would dare to touch that?

Jared smiles as he closes his eyes again. His chest seems to tremble as he draws in air.  
"It's not that simple."

"I think that's about the simplest question there is, actually."

"It would be," Jared says with a hint of impatience breaking the indifference of his voice, "if there was a single occasion I could look back to. Really, Jensen, you're thick as fuck, you know that?"

It makes Jensen feel slightly hollow in a manner that tells him he shouldn't have asked at all. And really, what kind of a question is that? He's just looking for some fucking explanation, a reason; something. But the answer he's getting doesn't sound like something he wanted to hear. Retrospectively, he realises he wouldn't have liked any answer whatsoever.

"Fine, I'll give you a when," Jared finally huffs, and Jensen can hear his heartbeat go crazy somewhere to the right from his ear.

"No, you don't - fuck - don't have to, I'm sorry," Jensen utters, pressing his eyes closed as if that could somehow prevent him from hearing.

"I was raped when I was four. I don't know how many fucking times, but I bet many. Or wait, is rape just anal for you, or does touching count? Because if it's anal, then I guess I was seven. I lost count after tenth time. I turned eight between there somewhere, too."

"Jay -"

"How about fingers? Do fingers count? What about oral? Because I got both. And I did both, too."

"Jared, stop - fuck -"

"He really liked to take my cock in his mouth. Not like you just did, just kinda fucking hold it in there and watch what it did to me. Really loved just sucking it a little bit, with his finger playing with my balls that wouldn't drop for like, what, six years yet? And you know why I like fingering myself? Because he taught me how to; it made the rape feel better, you know, didn't burn as much. Not that he ever let it burn _too_ much because if I fucking bled, he'd be caught. I never bled. And I got off on that so good, you know, having that thick fucking cock split me open."

"Shut _up_ ," Jensen gasps, his eyes wide now, not really thinking what he's doing; he's pressing his palm over Jared's mouth, but in a painful flash Jared's got him by the wrist and then his hand is somewhere much too far to reach the man's mouth again.

He's got that look in his eyes - the wild look of a wounded animal, with a mad glint amongst the rainbow trapped within his irises as he looks at Jensen. And he's scary again - scary in a way not even the parting haze of Xanax can take away.

"I started looking forwards to it pretty soon, you know," he carries on, his voice toxic and sharp, "Whenever he was alone with us, I'd make sure I infuriated him just the right way that he'd take me to my upstairs room and he'd fuck me again. Used to make me feel real special, fuck, to have him take my small fucking dick between his fingers and jerk it until I came."

Jensen doesn't know what he shouts, but he shouts something, and he's backing up from the bed and trying to wrestle his hand free. He doesn't want to hear. He doesn't want to imagine that.  
"What kind of a fucking twisted _fuck_ makes up shit like that, Jay?" he spits, and he's in tears either from Jared's words or the way he's holding onto him.

He chokes when Jared gets up with him, backs him into the wall for the billionth time during their relationship, and he's so scared, so - disgusted - and it all rings in his head like he's going deaf with the words.

"You wanted to hear," Jared hisses.

His lips are very close to Jensen's.

"You _wanted to hear_."

There's no distance between them. He bites Jensen's lips, sucks at them, kisses them, bites them again, and the skin already feels raw even though there's barely been any contact between them.

"Stop, _fuck._ You're fucking sick," Jensen growls against his mouth.  
He struggles until he tastes salt again, and a horrifying realisation hits him.

Jared isn't making it up - and if Jensen was looking for answers, now he's had them all.

His knees go weak, and to his surprise, Jared catches him when he falls. He clings onto the man's naked shoulders and feels him bring them both down onto the floor, arms firm and solid and steady even as Jensen's shake. He hears the bed creak when Jared's back hits it as he settles to lean against it, and Jensen finds himself colliding with the other's body, face buried into his chest.

"Tell me you're fucking lying," he breathes out, even though he already knows the answer.

Jared shakes his head and hiccups. Jensen wants to hurt him, shake him, slap him in the face to make him big again.

"Tell me that's not fucking true."

"I _wish_ I fucking could, Jen. But I guess that's just what I've always been - a sick little whore who just wants to be fucked."

Jensen can taste the blood in his voice, the rawness, the depth of self-hatred and disgust in it. He holds tighter, one arm wrapping around Jared's body and his other hand pressing over his chest. It takes a long while for the hyperventilation to stop, and he feels so stupid and weak for crying; this is not his pain, not his damage to cry about. But he can't stop it, either, and Jared holds an arm around him, breathing deep and slow and like none of this affects him at all. And yet, Jensen can smell the pain in him. It vibrates in the air and resonates in every exhale of his. The only sign of it that is truly, tangibly there, are the salty drops falling upon Jensen every now and then.

Jared presses his chin against Jensen's head and sighs.

"Now you know, I guess," he says like he's just confessed to a murder and doesn't care.

"It's not fair," Jensen hears himself say and he wants to bite his own tongue for it.

"Life's not fucking fair, Jen."

"You're not a whore, Jay."

"That's not what you said thirty minutes ago. I remember that pretty well, actually."

"I didn't _know_ ," Jensen gasps, and he pulls himself up, tries to look Jared in the eye but fails it completely.

His head drops and he's crying again, and he feels so stupid for it, like he's got no right and no reason to do so.

Jared drags a finger across his cheek, catching one tear off his face. Jensen looks at him and sees him with one of those empty smiles, but with a sharp, examining look in his eyes. There's no alprazolam in that gaze anymore, but Jensen wishes there was.

"It's not your fault," Jared states plainly, "I never told you. I never told anyone. Feels funny to have that out, actually. I should probably kill you."

Jensen's brows lift slightly, and he forgets to cry. A hollow grin crosses Jared's lips before toning back into the smile he's worn for a moment.

"I won't, don't worry. Too much hassle. Too obvious. I'd get caught."

It isn't exactly reassuring.

"It's just," Jared continues, his eyes squinting slightly and moving away from Jensen before glassing over as he stares at nothing in particular behind Jensen's shoulder, "it's weird - you know so much more about me than anyone else, but you don't really know who I am. You have all these facts that I've never told anyone, that I'd never tell anyone, and it's only because you have no idea - if you were closer to me, someone like my wife, I'd never tell you that. But because you don't really _know_ me, it's somehow easier - it doesn't feel real. Doesn't feel like you can really hurt me with what you know."

His eyes focus on Jensen again and he watches him for a moment without speaking.

"Is that trust, Jensen?" he asks more quietly, "To feel like you _wouldn't_ hurt me - even if you could?"

It takes a long while for Jensen to realise that this is a real question, and not a rhetoric one. He struggles to nod quickly, reassuringly.  
"I wouldn't. I'm sorry, I - I called you a liar, and - I shouldn't have, it's not - I'm sorry."

Jared shakes his head. His hand brushes through Jensen's hair again, and then his own; he wipes off the tears from his face and runs his hand underneath the tip of his nose. Then he sniffs, shrugs and pats the bed.

"I don't know about you," he says wearily, "but I'm going to take another fucking Xanax and then I'm going to sleep and hope that I'll die in my sleep. You wanna join me?"

"What?"

"You want to sleep with me, or you want to get as far away from me as you can, Jensen?"

Jensen growls.  
"I'm gonna stay," he answers defensively, "and make fucking sure you don't die in your sleep, because I still want to have a job to wake up for tomorrow, Jared."

Jared flashes him a tired smile and nods.  
"I'm actually happy to hear that. Well, you know, within the limitations that I can be _happy_ about anything, anyway."

He pulls himself up and offers a hand to Jensen, and as Jensen follows him up, his eyes run over the shape of Jared's soft, thick cock. When he catches himself from it, a wave of blistering guilt washes over him and he closes his eyes.

Jared chuckles.  
"Feels disgusting now, doesn't it. Think that you've actually touched me before you knew."

It takes a moment for Jensen to realise he thinks Jensen finds _him_ disgusting, and his eyes flash open again. Anger pushes aside the guilt and Jensen finds himself reaching forwards, pressing his palm against the other's flaccid length and he wraps his fingers around it so gently that he couldn't remember ever touching a dick like that in his entire life; he strokes it as if to challenge Jared, sliding the foreskin once above the glans and then back again. A soft, surprised sound escapes Jared, and he closes his eyes and swallows, his balance swaying towards Jensen. Then he places his hand over Jensen's and pulls it away.

"If you think I don't want to touch you anymore," Jensen hisses, "because of _this_ \- you couldn't be more fucking wrong."

"Does it turn you on, then?" Jared asks, tilting his head infuriatingly.

Jensen wants to gag.  
"No," he says, and his voice sounds weak and sickened in his ears, "No. I don't get off on violence. But it doesn't - it doesn't change what I think of you."

A lie. It does: it's already changed the entire way he views Jared, but he can't tell that to him, and he needs time to process just how. He wouldn't know the answer now if his life depended on it. Jared seems to know full well that he's making it up, and his crooked, disillusioned smile is the last thing that Jensen wants to see.

"Fuck. You know what I mean," Jensen grunts.

Jared shrugs.  
"Don't, really," he says, finally sitting down on the bed again.

"Jared - I don't - I mean that what happened to you doesn't make you anything less in my eyes. I feel like - maybe I can understand you better now that you told me. I don't know. Maybe I won't. But I'm not disgusted by you. There's a big fucking difference between being disgusted with what was done to you versus being disgusted by _you_ , and I'm not disgusted by you. Alright?"

"Whatever you say."

For a moment, they're quiet again. Jensen sits next to Jared on the bed but he can't take his eyes off of him; meanwhile, Jared stares grumpily at the wall ahead of them, his eyes sometimes visiting the collection of photos that Jensen watched what feels like years before.

"I wanted it," Jared finally says, escaping the aftermath of those words by turning and crawling back to his side of the bed, "I came back for more. Every single fucking time, I went back."

"That's not - you were a kid, Jay, it -"

"Don't wanna talk about it, Jen."  
He doesn't stop on the other side of the bed, but instead climbs up and runs his hand through his hair as he stands up again. Then he sighs.  
"I'm gonna take a shower; take this thing off," he says, tugging at his hair, "and take that pill. Then I'll come back, and when I'm here, you should pretend you're asleep. Alright?"

Jensen wants to argue, but he finds himself empty and so tired that he doesn't know how to do it anymore. Finally, he just nods.  
"Alright."

Jared nods. He opens a drawer and pulls out a towel, wraps it around his waist and wanders off. Fifteen minutes later, he emerges from the shower; Jensen hears him pop open the blister pack and wash the pill down with another glass of water, and he closes his eyes and does exactly as he promised, even though he feels like sleep has never been further from him as it seems now.

In a moment, Jared's back in the bed. He slips under the blanket and Jensen feels him curl up beside him, his knees and knuckles touching Jensen's side. In five more minutes, his breathing has steadied again, and Jensen dares to roll around - he slides his palm over Jared's arm and across his shoulder, giving him the benefit of feeling it cross every inch of his body on the way to his waist where he brings his arm around him and pulls him a little bit closer before leaning in to kiss his forehead. He parts his lids ever so slightly to see how Jared looks, and he feels a small painful twist in his chest at the sight of fresh scabs over his scalp where short-cropped hair used to grow before.

"I love you," he says quietly, unsure if Jared's there to hear him anymore.

He lowers his head upon the same, now slightly wet pillow with the other man and does his best to fall asleep with him like he'd promised.

 


	4. Doggy Style

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8145037/)

**([Part III: Doggy Style](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8145037/) )**


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